When France explores business avenues in Israel

A hundred French businessmen and women accompanied by a dozen regional economic services officials on a four-day visit to the country. Highlighting a meeting with President Isaac Herzog. Rarely has Israel experienced such tricolor commercial deployment on its territory. “This is the first time that a meeting of Foreign Trade Advisors (CCE) has been held in Israel”, insists Anne Baer, ​​founder of the consulting company Ikare Innovation and major organizer of this South-Mediterranean Near and Middle Regional Meeting. -East.

All the countries of the region were represented, with the exception of Algeria, Iran and Syria. The trip was intended in particular to explore cross-business opportunities, just over two years after the signing of the Abraham Accords between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, in September 2020. “Israel has become the regional power with a GDP greater than the sum of the GDPs of all the countries around it, observes Eric Danon, French ambassador in Tel Aviv. He takes on the role of regional facilitator.

The opportunity to explore business opportunities and measure the country’s risks. “The indicators remain robust but the political situation and the strong dependence on the high-tech industry leave room for uncertainty”, deciphers François Sporrer, head of the regional economic service at the French embassy in Lebanon. Because unlike many countries in the area, the economy is based more on brain juice than on oil or gas, of which a large deposit is exploited in the Mediterranean. The start-up nation has been hit hard, since the end of last year, by the crisis that is affecting the high-tech sector globally. “The Israeli economy depends exclusively on the tech sector and you have to know how to make the necessary adjustments, slice Edouard Cukierman, co-founder of Catalyst Investments, one of the largest venture capital funds in the country. is done efficiently: the Nasdaq has fallen by 70%. But for the venture, it’s more complicated and longer.”

new business

This air pocket in the world of Tech can be partially compensated by the new business generated by the Abraham agreements, which are turning the regional situation upside down. At the beginning of January, no less than 106 flights per week linked Tel Aviv to the United Arab Emirates. Qatar now allows planes from the national company El Al to land on its soil and Saudi Arabia accepts that its territory be flown over by planes from the Israeli company. “Israel is a country of kibbutzim with strong purchasing power, a consumer country increasingly oriented towards luxury goods”, comments Eric Danon. A country, too, where major infrastructure projects through calls for tenders can interest French companies, particularly in the rail sector, as Alain Bentéjac, president of the national committee of CCEs and boss of the engineering company, points out. Artelia, associated with the project for the new tramway line in Tel Aviv.

And beyond Israel, the whole region could soon play the role of global technological epicenter. “The Near and Middle East zone can act as a hub between Asia and Europe, believes Isabelle Bailly, president of the Sneci group, a consulting firm in the automotive sector, based in the Hauts de Seine. plans could be to buy components in Asia, deliver them by plane to the area to assemble systems as close as possible to the end customer and thus contain migratory flows while maintaining pressure on costs? And France would obviously have its card to play in this gigantic hub.