Israel’s Economy Endures Global Economic Meltdown

Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought”
Straight from the Jerusalem Boardroom #174, January 4, 2013
http://bit.ly/10VXRHN

1.  Israel’s 2009-2012 economic growth of 14.7% leads the OECD countries, ahead of Australia – 10.7%, Canada – 4.8%, USA – 3.2%, Germany – 2.7%, France – 0.3%, Euro Bloc – 1.5% decline.  Israel’s growth was undermined by the stoppage of natural gas supply from Egypt, which requires the acquisition of more expensive sources of energy (“Israel Hayom”, Jan. 2, 2013).

2.  Israel’s 2012 economic growth, 3.3%, leads the OECD countries which average 1.4% growth, ahead of the US (2.2%), Canada (2%), Japan (1.6%), Brazil (1.5%), Germany (0.9%), France (0.2%), Britain (0.1% decline), Spain (1.3% decline) and Italy (2.2% decline), trailing India’s 4.5% and China’s 7.5% .  Israel’s growth per capita, 1.5%, exceeds OECD’s average of 0.7%. Israel’s unemployment, 6.9%, is lower than the OECD (other than Germany’s and Japan’s) which averages 8%.  Israel’s private consumption increased 2.8%, compared with the OECD average of 1%.  Notwithstanding the global meltdown, Israel’s exports grew 1% at a time when most countries experience a substantial decline in exports (Globes Business Daily, December 31, 2012).  

3.  Israel’s 2012 tourism – all time high of 2.9 million tourists, compared with 2.8 million in 2011.  American tourists lead the pack, ahead of Russia, France, Germany and Britain.  Domestic tourism grew 3% (Ma’ariv, December 25).

4.  Australia’s $30BN Woodside Petroleum (WPL) is acquiring 30% of the rights of Israel’s Leviathan offshore natural gas field licenses for $696MN upon signing the agreement in February, 2013, $200MN upon launching exports, $350MN upon final decision to invest in liquefied natural gas export facilities, 11.5% royalties up to $1BN and $50MN for immediate oil exploration underneath Leviathan.  Woodside explores investment in additional Israeli offshore natural gas licenses (Globes, Dec. 4).

5.  The $1.6BN Minnesota-based Stratasys merged with Israel’s $1.4BN Objet (3D printers manufacturer), a week following the acquisition of Israel’s Retalix, by NCR, for $800MN.  Objet’s market value before the merger was $634MN (Globes, Dec. 4).  The $10BN Wollingford, CT-based Amphenol acquired Israel’s Tel-Ad for $65MN; the US storage giant, EMC, made its 5thIsraeli acquisition, More IT Resources, for $15MN.  EMC employs 1,000 persons in its Israeli research and development centers (Globes, Dec. 3).  Israel’s CrossRider was acquired by an overseas unidentified company for $37MN (Globes, Dec. 17).  The Menlo Park-based Greylock Venture Partners and the Palo Alto-based Norwest Venture Partners led a$12MN 1st round of private placement by Israel’s ScaleIO (Globes, Dec. 11).

6.  Google inaugurated its Israeli Start Ups Incubator, signaling its aim to expand its Israel operations (Globes, Dec. 11). The Holland-based Philipsannounced the establishment of a new research & development center in Israel, which will employ scores of scientists and engineers.  Philip’s research & development center in Haifa – which coordinates special applications developed in Israel the US, Holland and India – employs 600 persons, specializing in CT 3D imaging (Globes, Dec. 13).

7.  Electricite’ de France’s (EDF) renewable energy unit inaugurated its first three projects in Israel’s Negev – a $65MN investment.  EDF plans additional ventures in Israel, demonstrating its confidence in the viability of Israel’s economy (Globes, Dec. 19).

Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought: US-Israel Initiative” ???? ??????, “?????? ?????”
www.TheEttingerReport.com

January 4, 2013 | 9 Comments »

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9 Comments / 9 Comments

  1. @ yamit82:

    Yamit, living in NJ, near universities and around a lot of pharmaceutical research facilities, it seems like EVERY country has at least 10% of their science Ph.Ds living in New Jersey alone.

  2. Apple Takes Bigger Bite into Israel
    Apple‘s new development center in Haifa is looking for hi-tech engineers and joins Intel and Microsoft by expanding in Israel.

    Apple‘s new development center in Haifa is looking for hi-tech engineers as the huge tablet maker joins Intel, Microsoft and General Electric in expanding its operations in Israel.

    The recent recruiting follows by one month Apple’s advertisements for workers for Anobit, an Israeli flash memory start-up that Apple bought out in January for a reported $400 million to $500 million.

    Anobit’s flash memory controllers “are a key component of all Apple’s leading products,” reported TechCrunch, which added that the purchase “in one fell swoop…added a large team of chip engineers to payroll…. Roughly 160 of Anobit’s 200 employees are also engineers, thus they instantly represent more than 10 percent of the total number of chip engineers at Apple.

  3. How Waze Cleverly Uses Drivers To Make Better Maps Than Apple’s

    Will Apple Buy an Israeli Navigation App?

    Reports say Apple Inc. is in talks to buy Waze, a popular navigation app developed by Israelis.

    According to reports on Wednesday on technology website TechCrunch and Israeli website NewsGeek, Apple Inc. is in talks to buy the popular navigation app Waze, developed by Israeli start-up Waze Mobile, for $400 million.

    Representatives of both sides have declined to comment.

    If Apple does not buy others will.

  4. The fact that Israel is succeeding while Europe is collapsing will only further feed the paranoid, Jew-hating genocidal delusions of Europeans.

    To them, it is just more proof of a Zionist plot.

  5. There is no Global Economic meltdown. What looks like a meltdown for the masses is in fact a Global Economic Triumph for the Elite.
    What is happening is that there is a further shift in power and wealth from the masses to the elite

    The article above is meaningless as is the list of multinational companies and industries success. Whenever an enterprise of the elite is successful it means the people are further repressed and disempowered. I take it the article above means the Israeli elite has been further empowered – which is the standard – all Western elites have been successful. The Canadian banks made such a profit in the last while they went off to take the profits and buy up a lot of South America.

    Now the Israeli people (bottom 98 percent) may not have been as oppressed as the rest of the Western populations. This would be because Israel is a political anomaly and the Western and Israeli elites are not able to disempower the population as much as they are able to do in North America. Faced with the Islamic world such dis-empowerment would be suicide.

    So unfortunately or fortunately as one would look at it, the brink of annihilation helps to keep and maintain some economic freedom for the Israeli masses who like every other Western country are being oppressed by their fascist economic elites.

    In every Western Country there are two economies – the economy of the elite and the economy of the people,
    When the news media talk about what is good “for the country ‘ they mean what is ‘good for the elite’.
    What is good for the elite is bad for the people.
    What is good for the people is bad for the elite.

    The best possible thing for the American people is that the elite will run over the fiscal cliff and be destroyed.
    But unfortunately the elite will never allow that.

    The elites latest economic triumph may have been the tipping point. They will soon achieve a totalitarian state by means of economic fascism and aided by technology that will be worse than has ever been seen anywhere in human history.

  6. Israel’s government is going to be re-elected in part due to the strong economy. Energy independence around the corner will only fuel Israel’s explosive export-driven sales to foreign markets.

    It will be soon to be too late for BDS to meaningfully disrupt Israel’s economy.