Jerusalem, 21 July 1998
NATIONAL PROJECTS TO BE OFFERED TO FOREIGN INVESTORS
(Communicated by Jubilee Business Summit Spokeswoman)
At the Jubilee Business Summit steering committee yesterday evening
(Monday), 20.7.98, attended by Prime Minister's Office Director General
Moshe Leon, it was announced that government ministries are readying
national projects to be proposed for investment by foreign businessmen
arriving for the Jubilee Business Summit.
Among the project proposals from the ministries are: natural gas and
refineries (National Infrastructure Ministry); the privatization of Haifa
Municipal Airport and Jaffa Port facilities, a mass-transit system for
Jerusalem and opening public transport to competition (Transportation
Ministry); the establishment of a venture capital fund for alternative
energy, an energy-producing waste incinerator, cleaning up the Hiriya
waste dump and environs; the Dead Sea Park project and privatizing river
clean-up operations (Environment Ministry). The Ministry of Industry and
Trade has proposed the establishment of a venture capital fund for
promoting biotechnology projects.
Approximately 2,500 leading businessmen and representatives from
multinational corporations from Israel and abroad are expected to attend
the summit.
Following a visit to France by Communications Minister Limor Livnat, it
was agreed that major French corporations, banking and investment firms
will be attending the summit. Minister Livnat emphasized that as a closed
market, Israel is an attractive objective for investment, especially given
the country's relatively large consumption in comparison to its population
and its economic potential as a regional center for the Middle East. The
French government's director of industry, Didier Lombard, told the
minister that the Jubilee Business Summit would be a means to expand and
intensify Franco-Israeli cooperation and that he would act to bring French
businessmen and companies that had previously boycotted Israel due to the
Arab boycott.