A hundred French business men and women accompanied by a dozen officials from the regional economic services on a four-day visit to the country. Emphasizing a meeting with President Isaac Herzog. Rarely has Israel experienced such a tricolor commercial deployment on its territory. “This is the first time a meeting of Foreign Trade Advisors (CCE) has been held in Israel,” insists Anne Baer, founder of the consultancy firm Ikare Innovation and main organizer of this regional meeting of the Near and Middle South Mediterranean. -East.
All the countries of the region were represented, with the exception of Algeria, Iran and Syria. The purpose of the trip was in particular to explore cross-business opportunities, just over two years after signing the Abraham Accords between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, in September 2020. “Israel has become the regional power with a GDP greater than the sum of the GDPs of all the countries that surround it, observes Eric Danon, French ambassador in Tel Aviv. animator.
The opportunity to explore business opportunities and measure country risks. “The indicators remain solid but the political situation and the heavy dependence on the high-tech industry leave room for uncertainty,” deciphers François Sporrer, head of the regional economic service at the French embassy in Lebanon. Because unlike many countries in the area, the economy is based more on brain juice than on oil or gas, of which a large deposit is exploited in the Mediterranean. The start-up nation has been hit hard since late last year by the crisis affecting the high-tech sector globally. “The Israeli economy depends exclusively on the technology sector and we need to know how to make the necessary adjustments,” cuts Edouard Cukierman, co-founder of Catalyst Investments, one of the country’s largest venture capital funds. fell by 70%. But for the company it is more complicated and longer”.
new business
This pocket of air in the tech world can be partially compensated by the new business generated by the Abraham agreements, which are turning the regional situation upside down. At the beginning of January, 106 weekly flights connected Tel Aviv to the United Arab Emirates. Qatar now allows the planes of the national airline El Al to land on its soil and Saudi Arabia accepts that its territory is flown over by the planes of the Israeli company. “Israel is a country of kibbutzim with a strong purchasing power, a consumer country increasingly oriented towards luxury goods”, comments Eric Danon. Furthermore, a country where large infrastructure projects through calls for tenders can interest French companies, particularly in the railway sector, as pointed out by Alain Bentéjac, president of the national committee of the CCE and owner of the engineering company. project for the new tramway in Tel Aviv.
And beyond Israel, the entire region could soon play the role of a global technology epicenter. “The Near and Middle East area can act as a hub between Asia and Europe, believes Isabelle Bailly, president of the Sneci group, an automotive consultancy firm based in the Hauts de Seine. , deliver them by plane over the territory to assemble the plants as close as possible to the end customer and thus contain migratory flows while maintaining pressure on costs? And France would obviously have its card to play in this gigantic hub.