India-Israel joint venture capital fund proposed

NEW DELHI - Delegates from Israel and India at a bilateral business meeting here proposed a joint capital fund to enable private firms to take up high-risk projects.

The India-Israel forum, organised by the Tel Aviv University and Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), saw participants calling for the setting up an India-Israel Venture Capital Fund, which would assist private firms to take up high-risk projects, with government providing due risk coverage.

The meeting, which was a closed door one, saw Israeli delegates present their achievements in the areas of innovation and technology and encouraged the Indian Industry participants to engage more actively in the area of research and development and technological cooperation with Israel, said a CII statement.

The two-day forum discussed and deliberated on opportunities in business cooperation and technological collaboration between India and Israel in areas biomedicine, biotechnology, water technology, alternative energy and ecology.

The forum was co-chaired by Stanley M. Bergman, chairman and chief executive, Henry Schein Inc, Aharon Fogel, chairman, Migdal Insurance and Financial Holdings Ltd and chairman, Ness Technologies, from the Israeli side.

India was represented by Jamshyd Godrej, chairman and managing director Godrej & Boyce and Tarun Das, president, Aspen India.

Though, bilateral trade between the two countries has grown at a rapid pace to scale $4.5-$4.7 billion, senior government officials and business leaders who attended the meet emphasized the need for the diversification of the bilateral trade basket.