Israel is very picky, when it coms to setting up a trade mission overseas. There are only five countries, where the Holy Land has more than one commercial team, and one of those places is India. Why?

Three decades ago, India was still voting heavily against Israel at the UN. Today, diplomatic truths have made the respective Prime Ministers almost best buddies. Anyway, with so many Israeli post-army backpackers turning up every year, it was only a matter of time before the reality on the ground reached up to government levels in Mumbai.

In the past few days, the Indian government has agreed to purchase 2 AWACS from Jerusalem. Since May, there has been substantial cooperation over Covid-19. And just two weeks ago, Israeli based Coralogix, a provider of leading ML-powered log analytics and monitoring solution, “announced a strategic expansion into India to provide its customers with its first local Amazon Web Services (AWS) regional server support and data storage capabilities.”

If you play the numbers game, the relationship between the two countries is impressive. Bilateral trade is close to US$6 billion. Over 300 Israeli companies have invested in India. In the other direction, giants such as “Reliance, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Tech Mahindra, L&T, and Apollo Hospitals. While Reliance and Infosys have signed strategic partnerships and invested in multiple Israeli companies…”

For Israel, India amounts to a very special opportunity.

• It is relatively close and where partners can talk English with each other.
• It offers a huge market for its hightech products and services.
• It can provide world class subcontracting facilities at competitive prices.
• For observant Jews, a strict vegetarian cuisine is often readily available.

I have been fortunate recently to liaise with the IAC team in Mumbai. They have strong, positive experiences in facilitating overseas companies, including from Israel, as they penetrate the Indian economy. They have experience in projects in software development, medical devices, agriculture, and more.

Come 23rd September, we intend to develop some of these themes into a webinar. Watch this space for further details.