: India and Israel jointly organised the India-UAE-Israel Economic Summit to deliberate upon the opportunities for collaboration on tri-lateral projects. Attended by more than 250 delegates including key business leaders, Govt. officials and experts fromIndia, UAE and Israel, the Summit held earlier this week discussed ways and means to optimize tri-lateral opportunity for trade and investment. The event was supported by Israel Export Institute and Bank Hapoalim, Israel. Bank of Baroda and IBPC Dubai were the industry partners and sponsors for the event.
The meet included three break-away panel discussions after the general session. The three sectoral panel discussions were on Harnessing the potential of the Healthcare and Medical sector; Game Changer- Agritech, Clenatech, Energy, Foodtech, Tourism,Watertech & Smart Cities and Tech Collaboration opportunities.
Nikhil Kamath of Zerodha, Nishant Pitti and Prashant Pitti of Ease My Trip and Sujeet Kumar of Udaan, the three young Indian unicorns were part of the panel. The discussions at the Summit centered around the possibilities of joint projects and mutual benefits in clean energy, infrastructure, and agri-tech along with the ways to capitalize on the opportunities in healthcare and medical sector.
In the backdrop of the Abraham Accords and recent initiatives, the UAE-Israel-India business witnessed lot of interest among the delegates from all the countries. The Israel side has extended invitation to India companies to visit Israel to work and explore collaborations in various sectors.
Dr Aman Puri, Consul-General of India to Dubai said that the event provided a huge impetus to the opportunities for collaboration in both the public and the private sectors in the three nations with immense potential to work together.
Dr Puri added that India, Israel and the UAE complement each other on various fronts, especially in nurturing the startups and new-age businesses. “India is the third largest start-up ecosystem in the world and there is tremendous scope for benefitting from each-other in promoting them. While Israel is a powerhouse of research & development and startups, the UAE is also a major country supporting the startup domain,” he said.
The UAE’s advantages include ease of doing business, availability of capital and strategic location as a transit and re-export hub. Talking about the importance of collaboration, Dr. Puri said, “Pandemic has made the whole world realize how inter-dependent the countries are when it comes to dealing with global challenges of this magnitude. We need to turn this crisis into an opportunity to collaborate and make the world order more resilient in handling any crisis.”
Mr. Ilan Sztulman, Consul General of Israel to Dubai, termed the summit a window of opportunities to collaborate and do more business together. “This forum is symbolic as it comes immediately after the signing of the important economic cooperation agreement between Israel, the United States, the United Arab Emirates and India on shared issues of concern in the region and globally,” he added.
Mr. Suresh Kumar, Chairman, Indian Business and Professional Council Dubai, said that Israel, India and the UAE have very inherent and intense interest in technology and can come together and make innovation the cardinal principal of relationship.
Dr. Ron Tomer, Chairman, Presidency of Employers and Businesses; President, Manufacturers Association of Israel; CEO, Unipharm Ltd., Israel highlighted that these three nations (India, UAE and Israel) can complement each other and create a win-win situation that will bring great business for all of us; their free trade agreement (FTA) with India was underway and they were also now in discussions to sign the same with the UAE.
Mr. Faizal Kottikollon, Chairman, KEF Holdings who is based out of UAE shared his vision of major projects currently being driven in India in the field of Healthcare and Education where the three countries could collaborate for mutual benefit.
The event was also attended by other prominent speakers including, Mr. Adiv Baruch, Chairman of the Israel Export Institute, Mr. Ahmad Sultan Al Haddad, COO, JAFZA, Professor Leonardo Leiderman, Chief Economic Advisor, Bank Hapoalim, Professor of Economics and Business, Tel Aviv University, and Visiting Professor, Abu Dhabi School of Management (ADSM) and Mr. Mohammed Al Marzouqi, Director (Mep and Projects and Development), EMAAR.
