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The Ormita Commerce Network is inaugurating its activity in Israel. It is the world’s largest private multilateral reciprocal trading company, with no cash exchange – only goods.

The company currently operates in 54 countries and connects between 220,000 companies. Its turnover in 2012 totaled some $3.4 billion.

The company checks what each customer requires and has to offer.

For example, the company created a barter agreement between the Pakistan government, which supplied excess oranges, and China, which supplied in exchange agricultural machinery worth $120 million.

Ormita charges a 7% commission on the sale.

Source: Ynetnews.com

Oren Shachor and Munib al-Masri during inauguration of Israel-Palestine Business Arbitration Center Photo: Israel Hadari

Representative of Persian Gulf emirate’s royal family to visit Jewish state for first time in bid to promote cooperation in field of high-tech, Calcalist learns

A representative of Qatar’s royal family, Prince Khalifa al-Thani, is expected to visit Israel in November in a bid to promote cooperation in the field of high-tech between the two countries.

This will be the first official visit by a Qatar royalty to the Jewish state.

Al-Thani will arrive in Israel following the inauguration of the Israel-Palestine Business Arbitration Center, a commercial initiative led by Oren Shachor, president of the International Chamber of Commerce in Israel, and his Palestinian counterpart, Munib al-Masri.

The center offers arbitration services in disputes of up to $7 million between Israeli and Palestinian businesspeople.

Commercial relations between Israel and Qatar are taking place these days on informal channels, which include trade in goods but hardly any trade in high-tech products.

The Qatari government is interested in strengthening its local high-tech sector by acquiring knowledge and technologies and by encouraging Israeli high-tech companies to exports work and development projects to Qatar, rather than to India or Eastern Europe, in order to provide jobs for local engineers graduating from prestigious universities abroad.

The visit’s itinerary will be built in the coming months, and al-Thani is expected to meet with senior Israeli officials from the high-tech and venture capital industry.

The visit was scheduled over the weekend during a meeting between al-Thani and Shachor aimed at advancing trade relations between the countries.

Prince al-Thani is said to be very close to Qatar’s emir, prime minister and foreign minister and is considered a key figure in the country in terms of foreign trade and business relations, as well as in regards to trade agreements and regional agreements in the Persian Gulf emirates.

The Qatari prime minister was informed beforehand of al-Thani’s meeting with the Israeli official.

Shachor, formerly the coordinator of the government’s activities in the territories and president and chairman of the EAPC Group of Companies (Eilat Ashkelon oil pipeline), met earlier this week with a senior Iranian political and economic official.

The Iranian, who recognized Shachor as the ICC Israel representative, approached him together with another senior economic figure, and the three engaged in a long conversation. The official expressed the Iranian people’s hope for a major change in the upcoming elections in their country and for the downfall President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Source: Ynetnews.com

Adam Elktronik, based in GOSB Teknopark built by Israeli industrialist Stef Wertheimer, receives prize for innovative project from Turkish industry minister

Turkey’s industry minister has awarded an Israeli company with a prize for an innovative project during a technological parks convention in Istanbul.

The company, Adam Elktronik, is based in the GOSB Teknopark – an industrial park built by Israeli businessman and philanthropist Stef Wertheimer in Turkey.

The Turkish minister even promised to send a team from his office to visit Wertheimer’s industrial parks in Israel.

The GOSB Teknopark was built at a total investment of $10 million according to the model of the Tefen industrial park in northern Israel, and includes an art gallery.

The Istanbul ceremony was attended by the director of Wertheimer’s industrial parks, Arieh Dahan.

Source: Ynetnews.com

In its third estimate of fourth-quarter gross domestic product, Central Bureau of Statistics says economy grew faster than previously thought boosted by government spending, but exports remained weak while consumer spending grew marginally

Israel’s economy grew faster than previously thought in the fourth quarter of 2012 boosted by government spending, but exports remained weak while consumer spending grew marginally.

In its third estimate of fourth-quarter gross domestic product, the Central Bureau of Statistics said on Wednesday the economy grew an annualized 2.6%, above a prior estimate of 2.4% growth. That was the slowest since the first quarter of 2012.

The bureau also revised growth for all of 2012 to 3.2% from 3.1%, still the slowest pace since 2009 but the best of Western countries.

Growth is projected at 2.8% this year, excluding the start of natural gas production at a large well off Israel’s Mediterranean coast, which is expected to add about 1 percentage point to GDP.

The Bank of Israel held its benchmark lending rate at 1.75% for a third straight month on March 24. It cited indications of improvement in economic activity in the first quarter of 2013, but that it was too early to tell whether the improvement would be sustained or whether it was a temporary correction after weak fourth-quarter growth.

In the fourth quarter, exports fell 7.3%. Exports account for about 40% of Israel’s economic activity.

Investment in fixed assets slid 9.1%, while imports sank 16%. Government spending rose 5.6% while private spending grew 1.3%, its slowest pace of the year.

The bureau revised third-quarter 2012 GDP growth to 2.9% from 2.7%.

Source: Ynetnews.com

Natural gas flowing from Tamar field Photo: Noble Energy

Deposits expected to provide Jewish state with enough natural gas for decades, could transform country into energy exporter

Gas discoveries in the Levant Basin are set to be an economic boon for countries such as Israel and Cyprus.

Minister of Energy and Water Resources Silvan Shalom has expressed his hopes that the Jewish state can soon become self-sufficient in vital energy supplies.

“From now on, Israel can provide its needs for the next decades and we will do everything we can in order to move the Israeli Electric Cooperation from using oil towards gas,” says Shalom.

“It’s much cheaper and of course it’s much cleaner, and from now on the oil energy market will save at least NIS 1 billion every month, it means about $300 million every month. It will give the Israeli companies the option to compete in new markets overseas, and even to compete here (with) the importers that are coming here to Israel.”

Israel discovered two large fields, Tamar and Leviathan, in recent years. While gas from the Leviathan has not yet come online, the Tamar field began flowing recently and the deposits are expected to provide Israel with enough natural gas for decades and could transform the country into an energy exporter.

“Tamar has taken care of the domestic market for the next several decades, which means that future discoveries will need to be, at least a portion of them, exported,” says Bini Zomer, director of corporate affairs for Noble Energy in Israel.

“Noble is committed to growing the domestic market and to serving the domestic market, but the size of the Tamar discovery, and the size of Leviathan discovery after it means that the domestic market cannot grow fast enough to justify the investments for the domestic market alone.”

Tamar, which holds an estimated 8.5 trillion cubic feet is set to begin pumping to the Israeli market while Leviathan which boasts an estimated 18 trillion cubic feet of gas, is expected to go online in 2016. However, as with all energy exploration projects, nothing is a sure thing.

Continue reading Via Ynetnews.com

Blue-and-white exports Photo: Avishag Shaar Yashuv

Israeli economy climbs from 138th place to 29th in global exports since 1948. ‘In its 65 years, Israel has enjoyed fast growth based, among other things, on the fast and significant increase in exports,’ says Export Institute chairman

In its 65 years of existence, the State of Israel’s volume of exports (goods and services) has grown 15,000 times, from some $6 million in 1948 to some $91 billion in 2012, the Israel Export and International Cooperation Institute (IEICI) reported Tuesday in honor of Independence Day.

According to IEICI calculations, this is the sixth highest growth rate in the world during that period, putting the Israeli economy in the 38th place in terms of export volumes and 29th in terms of exports per capita, after South Korea and Britain and before France, Spain, Italy, Japan and the United States.

An analysis conducted by IEICI economists, examining the export growth rates from 1948 to 2012, ranks Israel in the sixth place in the world after the United Arab Emirates (whose volume of exports has grown 150,000 times during that period), South Korea (29,000 times), Oman (24,000 times), Qatar (24,000 times) and Taiwan (17,000 times).

Israel is followed by China, whose volume of exports grew 3,900 times since 1948, and Japan (3,000 times).

Most countries preceding Israel in terms of export growth rates are the Gulf states, thanks to an increase in oil production and in its global price. Israel ranks second among OECD countries (after South Korea) and first among European countries.

“In its 65 years of existence, Israel has reached significant export achievements and enjoyed fast growth based, among other things, on the fast and significant increase in exports,” said IEICI Chairman Ramzi Gabbay.

The figures are encouraging but hold a concerning message too. They serve as a reminder of the Israeli economy’s dependence on exports as a source of growth. This dependence means that the Israeli economy is negatively affected by a slowdown in the volume of global trade, following a financial crisis, even when the economic trends which led to the crisis did not take place in Israel.

This was the case when the real estate bubble burst in the US, leading to the bank shares crisis on Wall Street in 2008, and this is the case today when the European debt crisis is leading to significant cuts in government budgets and to an economic slowdown in European countries, which serve as the Israeli industry’s main export destination.

Source: Ynetnews.com

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