"I'm inspired by opportunity of collaborating between Israeli and Indian economy": Nir Barkat

New Delhi [India], April 19 : Israel's Minister of Economy and Industry Nir Barkat said that he is inspired by the opportunity of collaborating between the economies of Israel and India.

In response to 's question regarding his India visit, Barkat said, "I'm inspired by the opportunity of collaborating between Israeli economy and the Indian economy. But prior to that, I want to mention the friendship between the people. Israelis love Indians and thank God, Indians love Israelis. We have good history for 2000 years, while Jews had challenges all over the world, we always felt safe and secure living and doing business in India. And I think this is very important looking into the future."

Speaking about the ties between India and Israel, Barkat said both the governments of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu are "friendly." He said that India and Israel should focus on business growth. He talked about collaborating with India which he stressed "soon going to be the third largest economy."

"Both governments, Modi and Netanyahu, are friendly. We both understand how to take our economy to the next level. So, I'm inspired by the opportunity. Naturally, what I believe we should do now is focus on business growth and see how our technology, we're tiny, a little country, less than 10 million people, but we have good ideas," Nir Barkat told .

"We're the leading entrepreneurial country in the world. We understand how to leverage technology to solve many challenges and the opportunity with the economy of India, which is soon going to be the third largest economy, is scale scope. You're 150 times larger than Israel. And I believe it's a wonderful opportunity to make one plus one equals five. And so, in the near future, I believe we should help institutionalize business-to-business relationship and expand that ability for people to do better and more economy and more business," he added.

When asked whether any discussion took place between Israel and India on Free Trade Agreement, Barkat said, "Right now, there's not a lot of trade. There's a lot of business, but less trade. I believe the big opportunity is in the business world. We did discuss and we will check out the opportunity to do a free trade agreement side by side to the business development between the nations. And I'm very optimistic that we'll be able to do really good deals together."

Earlier, Barkat attended the India-Israel Business Forum where he said that Indian people are "good friends" of Israel. "We share the same values including democracy, human rights and respect for others, and face similar challenges in security and economy," the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) tweeted quoting Barkat as saying.

"Today, 10% of Israel's labour is tech-oriented. For a small economy like Israel, we need to grow that number to 25% in the next 20 yr. For us to scale to that number, we need to open our markets and India is a great solution for our growth," Barkat said.

Noting that the world was moving swiftly ahead, he added, "We need to bring our experience from entrepreneurs & managers back to the #education system. The key factor for speeding growth would be how we transition from old jobs to new ones."