The State Bank of India (SBI) has become the first foreign bank to open a branch in Israel's diamond exchange."We have thirty years of experience in diamond financing and have offices in all the major centres associated with the trade. Tel Aviv completes the loop," SBI Chairman OP Bhatt told PTI."It will give us the first mover advantage to tap on the Indo-Israel bilateral trade," Bhatt said.Besides diamonds, we also see huge potential in telecommunications, chemicals, textiles, agriculture and water management, food processing, pharma and health care, he said.This is SBI's 84th branch overseas.The bank, which is India's largest, already has offices in other important diamond business centres like New York, Antwerp, Toronto, Moscow, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Johannesburg, Angola and an exclusive diamond branch in Mumbai."There is tremendous trade potential between the two countries and the opening of the branch is a clear manifestation of the same," Stanley Fischer, Governor, Bank of Israel said at the inauguration function of the bank."This was a natural event waiting to happen. The remarkable growth in bilateral trade between the two countries has led to diversification of trade with significant growth in new sectors", India's Ambassador to Israel, Arun Kumar Singh said.
