Baden-Württemberg opens representative office in Israel
Minister for Economic Affair Dr Nicole Hoffmeister-Kraut: “As a world-leading high-tech location, Israel can provide important stimuli for the economy of Baden-Württemberg”.
Given its significance as a strategically important target market, Baden-Württemberg will be opening a representative office in Israel in October of this year. The aim is to support small and medium-sized enterprises in particular to enter the market by offering first-hand information, local expertise and high-level solution competence. At the same time, the representative office will boost the marketing of Baden-Württemberg as an important location for businesses and encourage potential candidate companies to set up offices in our state.
“Globally, Israel has taken a leading role with regard to digitisation and the development of advanced technologies. Tel Aviv is considered one of the world’s most innovative start-up regions. As a world-leading high-tech location, Israel can provide important stimuli for the economy of Baden-Württemberg,” the Minister for Economic Affairs and Labour Dr Nicole Hoffmeister-Kraut said today (11th August) in Stuttgart. The representative office will therefore not just serve as a point-of-contact for businesses but will also be used for trend and innovation scouting in Israel. The office will promote the transfer of innovative trends to the economy of Baden-Württemberg and to applied research as well as encouraging networking between decision-makers in both countries, the minister explained.
Business and industry from the state of Baden-Württemberg will be represented in the Tel Aviv Chamber of Foreign Commerce by a representative and an innovation scout. Their task will be to identify new business models, look for cooperation partners and establish networks in one of the most innovative technology regions of the world. The representative office will be focusing on the key technologies Digitalisation, Industry 4.0 and Artificial Intelligence. The generated synergies with Israeli start-ups are expected to offer a lot of additional value to medium-sized businesses in Baden-Württemberg.
Zukunftsfonds Heilbronn (Future Fund Heilbronn – ZFHN), which already has a number of established business contacts in the start-up and technology scene in Israel and particular expertise in the key technology areas of Industry 4.0, will be acting as a partner of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and of AHK Israel, the German-Israeli Chamber of Industry and Commerce.
“As Zukunftsfonds Heilbronn, we have been present in Israel for many years and maintain close contacts to entrepreneurs, universities and technology hotspots. With Inspekto, we have an extremely strong technology company in the artificial intelligence/ IOT sector in our portfolio, which already has an office in Heilbronn. I am of the opinion that more and closer links between the unique Israeli start-up system and Baden-Württemberg as a business location of global market leaders offers an enormous synergy potential. I am very pleased that as a partner of the Ministry of Economic Affairs of Baden-Württemberg, Zukunftsfonds Heilbronn will be able to significantly contribute to intensifying and strongly professionalising the already existing excellent contacts between our innovative federal state and Israel,” commented Thomas Villinger, managing director of the zfhn Zukunftsfonds Heilbronn.
Michel Weinberg, the representative for Baden-Württemberg at AHK Israel, declared: “AHK Israel is very pleased that with Baden-Württemberg it has been given the privilege to represent the powerhouse of German industry, technology and SMEs in Israel. The innovative capacity of Israel combined with that of Baden-Württemberg together with co-operations between enterprises on the River Jordan and the Neckar River promise a clear win-win situation.”