Several days after criticizing Israelis who have emigrated from the country, Finance Minister Yair Lapid addressed a gathering in New York that included many Israeli emigrants. He spoke about the positive data on the Israel economy and the way the country continually reinvents itself. He said that "Change that we make means that Israel is like a stock traded below its real value, and we all know that it won't stay like this for long."
Lapid added, "GDP growth in Israel in 2013 is 3.5% - better than the US, better than the euro zone, and better than the OECD." He added that exports are dispersed among geographical regions, the rate of unemployment is falling, and foreign investment in the Israeli economy is "the highest for a decade."
Lapid said that the strategy he is leading is based on innovation. "Let's take the relative advantage and maximize it. In the coming years that will be my aim, and that's the way we will move forward. This is the strategy, to create an economy that is completely focused on innovation and advanced technology and towards that we'll take our higher education system."
He continued, "Towards this end we will build an entire professional training system for the haredi (ultra-orthodox) men and Arab women, and people currently working in traditional industries as discussed - it is time we recognize that they are moving to India and China."
Lapid said, "For this we will build our infrastructure. I prefer putting our money into cyber optics, broadband or a long-term loan to a group of three friends that have left the army and want to set up a start-up. That's good money. That's smart money, and that's the kind of money that will make money in taxes, which we can re-invest in the markets."
He went on to praise the haredim, describing them as a "thrilling group." He said, "A range of new laws that we are pushing through will put onto the Israeli labor market tens of thousands of young haredim. Again and again it is clear that learning the Talmud from age three sharpens the mind in ways that we cannot understand. These people bring to the technology table one quality that everyone is looking for - originality. They are original and they are different and they learn faster than we have ever seen."
Lapid said, "We have the ability to reinvent ourselves from new. We did it in 1948 when a group of Holocaust refugees became a country of fighters who established a state. We did it again in the 1950s and again in the 1990s when a million immigrants flooded Israel and changed the demography in almost one go. We changed from the nation of the Talmud to the nation of the kibbutz and from the nation of the kibbutz to the nation of academics, and from the nation of academics to the start-up nation."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on October 9, 2013
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2013