Everybody knows that Israeli exports are driven by the high-tech sector. For years, Jaffa oranges have not been the commercial flavour of the month, having been replaced by the tasty riches of Intel and other multinationals based in Israel.

Within the tech hype, there is one sector that tries to keep under the radar – pun intended – and that is the defense industry. The issue came to light this week in a discussion over the 2017 budget. The Treasury is trying to up its level of control on export licenses for armaments.

In turn, the “Calcalist” newspaper ran a review of defense companies, and the numbers are fascinating.

In 2015, around US$5.7 billion of contracts were signed. This is about 10% off the average for the past decade, although a little improved on 2014. The peak was US$7.4 billion in both 2009 and 2010.

And the destination of these sales? This really surprised me. 53% are Asian and Australasian based clients. The rest is spread fairly evenly around Europe, USA and other regions. In total, these numbers represent about 10% of Israel’s annual exports.

What is the real cherry on the cake? A few days ago, the extent of Israel’s participation in the Rio Olympics was made public. Aside from a delegation of nearly 50 athletes, dozens of companies from the Holy Land have won contracts to protect the event – from the air, sea, cyber space and more.

It is estimated that about 10,000 Brazilian security service personnel have been trained by Israelis over the past couple of years. The total financial commitment is about US$2.5 billion, according to an item on Israel Channel 2 TV station.

What next? I am not an expert in this sector. Israel’s political enemies would rather boycott these capabilities and risk the consequences. However, can you imagine how unsafe we all would be without this contribution from factories in Haifa or start ups in Herzylia? Frightening!