Israel Business Update
Volume Il Issue II - January 15, 2006

Prepared by Dr. Mike Cohen of the Galilee Institute (http://www.gogalil.com)

Exclusively for Team M-EDG (http://www.m-edg.com) and its Israel Biomedical Initiative

Israel economy hums despite annual tumult
It was the country's third straight year of strong growth, with the economy expanding nearly 5 percent. The stock market has been hitting record highs; unemployment is at a 10-year low. Israel's central bank is lowering interest rates to 4.5 percent on Monday, putting them well below rates in the United States, an almost unprecedented development. The Israeli shekel is at its strongest level in five years, with the dollar trading at 4.20 shekels. Further, Warren Buffett, the billionaire investor, paid $4 billion for an Israeli company, and Donald Trump is developing a 70-story luxury residential tower on the outskirts of Tel Aviv. "Israelis look at the economy, and they've essentially been through these disturbances in the past, and they know the economy is pretty robust and it tends to come back," said Stanley Fischer, governor of the Bank of Israel. "Things that happen here have a smaller impact on markets than I think they would abroad."

Israeli Operation Continues to Pace Herley
John Kelley, Herley President, stated, "The acquisition of the Israeli operation has been an absolute 'home run.'" Israel's list of customers and business continues to grow, and due to the strength of Yonah Adelman's management and his excellent team, Herley Israel now generates as much revenue in a single quarter as it did for an entire year just a few years ago.

Read more #1

Read more #2

Israel's Nice gets Bangkok airport surveillance deal
NICE Systems (Nasdaq:NICE), the Israel-based global provider of advanced solutions that enable organizations to extract Insight from Interactions(TM) to drive performance, today announced that it has received a 7-digit order for its advanced video recording solutions from Bangkok's new international airport, Suvarnabhumi Airport, Thailand. This new airport was opened in September 2006, and includes the world's largest control tower (132.2m or 434 feet), and the world's second largest single building terminal l (563,000 m2 or over 6 million ft2).

Read more #1

The battle for generics: Size matters
Zocor (generic Simvastatin), Merck’s cholesterol-lowering drug, had sales of $4.38 billion in 2005. The price of this drug fell nearly 70% when Israel’s Teva and Ranbaxy received 180-day exclusivity — to encourage patent challenges for quicker availability of lower-cost generics the US FDA provides this incentive, a 180-day period in which other generics are not allowed — for the generic version. The once over $5 billion market for this drug is expected to crash to a tenth at $500 million following US FDA approval for eight more generics in December 2006, at the end of the 180-day exclusivity.

Read more #1

Telekom Serbia Selects Gilat’s SkyEdge for Public Telephony and Enterprise Applications
PETAH TIKVA, Israel--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Gilat Satellite Networks Ltd. (Nasdaq: GILT) today announced that Telekom Serbia, the incumbent telecom carrier in Serbia, will deploy Gilat’s SkyEdge broadband satellite hub and several hundred VSATs to serve its residential and corporate customers. To meet its Universal Service Obligation (USO) requirements, Telekom Serbia will deploy SkyEdge VSATs at remote community centers throughout Serbia to provide citizens with reliable telephony, fax and broadband Internet access. Telekom Serbia will also use the VSATs to serve its customers in the television rebroadcasting and enterprise networking sectors.

Read more #1

“Sunday Times” of London zeros in on Israel as cause for Crude oil price bounce
Crude oil briefly bounced $1.25 cents to $57.75 / barrel following an article in the “Sunday Times” of London, indicating that Israel has drawn up plans to destroy Iranian uranium enrichment facilities with a tactical nuclear strike. The Times said: “Israelis have become increasingly convinced that a “second holocaust” of the Jews is brewing, stoked by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president and chief Holocaust denier, who has repeatedly called for Israel to be destroyed.” But speculation of a future war between Israel and Iran is baseless. That’s the majority opinion of Tel-Aviv traders and the crude oil markets these days. The Tel-Aviv-100 stock index rose to a record high of 945.5 last week, up 15% from a year earlier, close behind the MSCI Emerging market index which gained 19 percent. Israel’s economy expanded by a healthy 5% last year, losing 0.9% of growth due to $3.4 billion of damages from the summer war with Hizbollah.

Read more #1

Read more #2

American Technion Society’s Southern Region raises $85 million
A recent string of major gifts have helped the American Technion Society (ATS) eclipse its campaign goal for the 1996-2006 "Shaping Israel’s Future" campaign to raise $750 million for the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. This includes an astounding $88.4 million raised by the ATS Southern Region based in South Florida. Fueled by this momentum, the ATS – the leading organization raising funds for education in Israel – has announced an ambitious plan to raise an additional $250 million over the next three years, transforming the campaign into an historic quest for $1 billion.

Read more...

INTRODUCING…INTRODUCING… INTRODUCING…INTRODUCING… INTRODUCING…INTRODUCING… INTRODUCING…

Volunteers For Israel

When Ruth Rennie made her first trip to Israel as a tourist, she witnessed a country that needed help and she wanted to make a contribution. She was so fascinated by the country, the friendliness of the people and being part of something really important that two years later she returned as a leader of her own group of volunteers. "The program is three weeks long and we live in an Army camp," explained Rennie, 73, of Hemet, CA. "The work is light manual labor. Our particular group works with medical supplies -- refurbishing medical field kits." She has since made 22 annual trips with Christian groups from local churches. "Even though we are from different Christian denominations, we're comfortable together," she said, adding that it is also a spiritual experience. "It's like a short-term Peace Corps trip," she said. "It made the Bible come alive for me."

Read more #1

Read more #2

The Israel Business Update