The Hindu Business Line : Indo-Israeli fund for joint R&D activities planned

AN Indo-Israel Technology Fund to promote joint research and development (R&D) activity in three focused areas of agriculture, biotechnology and medical equipment, with the participation of industries from both countries, has been proposed.

The fund to have a corpus of $2 million, equally shared, will serve as a catalyst to bring Indian and Israeli companies together to undertake research work. It would have a committee with members from both countries to screen proposals, said Mr Mouneer Agbariya from the Embassy of Israel's Economic Affairs Department in India.

The mechanism of operating such an initiative was put forward to the Union Ministry of Science and Technology sometime ago. Israel has successfully forged such R&D relationships through funds in Singapore, South Korea, Germany, the UK and the US, Mr Agbariya told Business Line.

Hoping that the new Government and the Ministry of Science and Technology would favourably consider the initiative, he said joint projects worked out between Indian and Israeli companies had to be submitted to the committee.

A feasibility study would be done by the committee and if found commercially attractive, a financial grant would be provided.

The joint venture project would have to pay royalty to the fund after three-four years. Interestingly, royalty earnings could boost the corpus as has happened in the case of Singapore, where the fund with initial contribution of $.5 million grew to $1.5 m in four-five years, Mr Agbariya said.

The venture is expected to benefit India more since the production centre from any successful R&D effort will be set up in the country.

In the case of marketing the product to other countries, mutual sharing would come in, he said.

Another proactive step being taken by the Israeli Government to promote industrial cooperation is to open a Trade Centre in Mumbai in two months. The centre would showcase products and technologies from Israel.

For companies from Israel, the centre would offer access to a database on Indian companies, office services, facilitate delegations and meetings, he said.

Earlier, speaking at an Indo-Israel Chambers of Commerce and Industry (IICCI)-organised meeting, `Israel Telecom,' Mr Agbariya said bilateral trade between the two countries had jumped from a mere $200 million a decade ago to $1.8 billion by the end of 2003. In the first quarter of 2004, the figure was already $550 million.

He said in the telecom sector, there was no area where the presence of Israeli technology could not be felt. Showcasing this strength, Telecom Israel - 2004 has been organised in Tel Aviv from during November 8-11, for which Indian companies were welcome to participate.

The President of the IICCI, Mr Ken Sagar, said there had been a spurt in Indo-Israel cooperation in the areas of agriculture, defence, security and telecom.

Mr J.A. Choudary, Chief of Pinexe Systems and TiE Hyderabad, said there had been a definite change in the attitude of venture capitalists (VCs) on Indian IT entrepreneurship, and a whole lot of VCs from the US were looking to support ventures in Hyderabad and Bangalore.

Joint collaborations with technologically strong countries such as Israel would benefit us, he said.

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