In addition our visits to companies and our contacts among
professionals extend our view of this country's technology sector.
This input allows us the freedom of making predictions, occasionally
off target but more often "spot on". Notwithstanding any
unforeseeable developments connected with the planned handover of
Gaza 2005 should be a banner year.
The recent flow of news announcements of corporate mergers and
acquisitions, massive new contracts, investments from local venture
capitalists and heavy inflows of foreign capital are all indicators
that this country's economy is perking up.
Foreigners are "buying in", with the Mathew Bronfman purchase of the
Israel Discount Bank, the third largest bank in Israel, just one of
many examples. Finance Minister Benyamin Netanyahu has made it clear
that the privatization of Israel's varied industries is a key part of
his overall economic program. It was reported that he has made
himself available for meetings with representatives of investment
bankers from Morgan Stanle, Deutsche Bank and UBS.
As in the past, heightened economic activity, is spearheaded by the
high-tech sector. The supply of engineers and technicians, who a year
ago were happy to get jobs outside of their field of expertise, is
being depleted. Intel Israel, apparently, is experiencing
difficulties in locating new technical personnel. Moreover, the
Israel Defense Forces has indicated that it is planning to improve
pay conditions of engineers to persuade them from departing for the
private sector. High tech exports are also on the upswing. They have
not been hindered by the modest strenghtening of the Israeli
shekel against the U.S. dollar.
The Tel-Aviv Stock Exchange has responded by recording new all-time
highs as funds pour in daily from local and overseas investors.
Perhaps this may serve as the last best opportunity, for the
foreseeable future, to acquire assets in Israel at reasonable
prices.
Not blessed with access to hundreds of newspapers, television
stations and news wire services the Israeli corporate world maintains
close contact with the country's only two business newspapers. These
newspapers have their own web sites and monitoring news has become a
relatively uncomplicated task. Together with the editorial board we
get "the handle" on developments.