Chairman Emeritus of the Tata Sons, Ratan Tata is scheduled to visit Tel Aviv later this month to attend a transportation technologies and future business models summit hosted by the Israeli Prime Minister.
The two-day "Prime Minister's Fuel Choices and Smart Mobility Summit" will begin on October 31 in the Israel's capital.
Sources in the automotive and defence sector told the business daily, Globes, that Tata's arrival to Israel for the conference was "very unusual" but probably indicates his group's "great interest" in the Israeli auto-tech industry.
The group-owned Jaguar-Land Rover recently invested tens of millions of dollars in Tata Capital Innovations Fund, the daily reported.
Apart from Tata, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, other ministers of his cabinet and other prominent industry leaders like chairpersons of the SEAT and Lamborghini, both of which are Volkswagen group brands, Ole Harms, chairman of the MOIA smart transportation division founded two years ago by Volkswagen, senior managers at Ford, BMW, Delphi Automotive, and Nvidia.
Investment representatives from Chinese transportation firm Didi and Internet giant Baidu will also be participating in the event among many other potential investors, the report said.
During his earlier visit to Israel in 2013, Tata had signed an agreement with Israel Aerospace Industry (IAI) to jointly develop, manufacture and support a wide range of defence and aerospace products including missiles, Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), radars, electronic warfare systems and home land security systems.
The Tata Group has also invested USD 5 million in Tel Aviv University's (TAU) Technology Innovation Momentum Fund.
As the lead investor in the fund, Tatas have right of first opportunity to negotiate licence agreement on areas that have been defined as start-up field like automotive, point of care for medical devices, cleantech, etc.
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