Israel's Minister Nir Barkat to lead business delegation to India on Feb 10

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Israel's Minister of Economy and Industry, Nir Barkat, will be leading the largest business delegation from the country to India next week to boost bilateral trade in what would be his third official visit to New Delhi.

The two-day visit starts next week on Monday. Barkat will also be meeting Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal during the trip.

"The largest ever multi-sectoral CEO level delegation from Israel comprises over 100 innovative Israeli companies from healthcare, energy, cybersecurity, defence and HLS, agritech, smart mobility, watertech, foodTech, and more," officials told PTI.

The high-profile visit is being coordinated by the Ministry of Economy & Industry on the Israeli side and the Ministry of Commerce & Industry on the Indian side.

It will involve the participation of all the major chambers from Israel - the Israel Export Institute, Federation of Israeli Chambers of Commerce and The Manufacturers Association of Israel, while FICCI and CII will be taking the lead from the Indian side.

The two-day programme includes a business forum, B2B meetings with Indian companies, the interaction of a restricted CEOs Forum nominated by the two governments, a session by Invest India (under DPIIT); roundtables and industry visits.

The Israeli delegation will also be participating in the India Energy Week being organised at the same time in Delhi.

With ceasefire agreements holding up so far in the north and south of Israel, Israeli businessmen have expressed hopes that the resumption of Air India flights from March 2 and relative calm in the region will help boost bilateral trade between India and Israel.

Barkat during his visit to India in April 2023, even before the war broke out in October of that year, had expressed interest in bringing skilled labour from India in various sectors to fill in the massive shortage of workers in Israel.

With the shortage of workers becoming even more acute during the war that started with Islamist Hamas' terror attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, Israel has brought in about 13,000 workers from India in the construction sector and is working on bringing several thousand more, also in other sectors of the economy.

Much of bilateral trade between India and Israel had been traditionally dependent on transactions in diamonds since diplomatic relations were established in 1992, but of late it has diversified and six clusters have been identified as areas of focus - Advanced Manufacturing; Climate & Desert Tech, Agro & Food tech; Defence & HLS; High Tech and Life Science & Health.