Relationships between countries can take various different forms and can be based on a whole range of foundations. Occasionally, we see relationships where interests and values coalesce and the result of which is a strong, dynamic and productive partnership. This is the relationship between the UK and Israel.
The impact of the partnership between these two countries continues to be of great benefit, not just in the political sense, but also in very real terms to both peoples. One needs only to look at the bilateral ties that exist in business and trade for proof of these universal and applicable advantages.
The most up-to-date figures from Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) show that trade between the UK and Israel has gone up 35% over the last year and is now worth a staggering £3.75 billion.
When broken down further, we can see that there are increases in both directions of trade: exports from the UK to Israel has increased by 17% and exports from Israel to the UK has increased by over 50%, which translates to the UK being Israel’s second largest export market, and their 4th largest overall trading partner.
So, against this backdrop, in November 2011, the Trade and Economic Office at the Embassy of Israel was approached by the UK’s Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to build a delegation of business leaders to join the Minister of State for Universities and Science, Rt Hon David Willetts MP, on a visit to Israel.
In every way, the visit was a resounding success.
However, so too was our Israel New Media Innovation Day that had taken place in London a year before. This event brought together leaders from the UK’s Media industry and exposed them to the biggest and brightest innovations coming out of Israel in this sphere.
As a follow on to both events, the we began planning for a New Media delegation to Israel. Israel had come to the UK and so now it was time to take the UK to Israel.
Excitingly, as the opportunity arose to combine this New Media delegation with the Ministerial visit of the Rt Hon Ed Vaisey MP, Minister for Culture, Communities and Creative Industries, the Trade and Economic Office worked together with the British Embassy in Tel Aviv, UK Israel Business and the Israel Export Institute, to create a truly first-class bilateral programme.
Between 4-7 March, Minister Vaisey was accompanied on this visit to Israel by high-level representatives from several leading media organisations such as BBC Worldwide, Ogilvy, BBH and Samsung, to name but a few.
Centred on Israel’s expertise and reputation in New Media Technologies, the delegation visited several incubators and R&D Centres, including the JVP Media Labs and Microsoft Israel’s R&D Centre, to witness first-hand the exciting range of stimulating new technologies on offer.
Delegates were intrigued and impressed by the lengths to which the Israeli government invests in the start-up community, putting in place tangible infrastructures, including financially, to support their growth and development.
Throughout the visit, the delegates were also treated to presentations and demonstrations from some of the most recent Israeli success stories in this field. They visited NDS’s office and were able to observe just how integral they had been to the success of BSkyB’s Pay TV Business. It has since been announced Cisco is set to acquired NDS for $5 billion.
Other success stories on show during the visit included Labpixies, who were acquired by Google, and The Gifts Project, who were acquired by eBay and used to form eBay’s Israel Social Center.
One of the participants, Nicole Yershon, Director of Innovative Solutions for Ogilvy, commented: “This whirlwind trip enabled me to meet amazingly innovative technology companies and entrepreneurs of an extremely high calibre, with an eye to introducing them to the Ogilvy and Mather UK Group and the wider global Ogilvy lab community. This will ideally lead to us collaborating and commercialising on various projects in the future.”
On his return from the visit, Sidharth Jayant, the European Content Service Manager for Samsung, noted that “The new media delegation was successful in making the UK delegates understand the huge potential of technology sector in Israel. It is quite breath-taking to see so many start-ups creating valuable products for various industries. Usually, such delegations have a wide scope and its difficult to find the exact companies that are of your field of interest. However, this delegation achieved to set up excellent meetings that might be pursued for business reasons in future”.
As these comments suggest, the visit was extremely successful and a notably productive event.
Given the emergence of Tech City in East London and the creation of Google Campus, amongst other incubator programmes, Britain has recognised the need to grow the start up culture in the UK and has looked to Israel for inspiration and collaboration. These evolving partnerships hold an enormous amount of energy that can continue to drive the UK-Israel relationship forward and we await these developments with excitement.
Daniel Saunders
Chief of Staff
Trade & Economic Affairs
