Schwarzenegger to Sign Cooperation Treaty with Israel

by Gil Ronen

(IsraelNN.com) Minister of Industry, Trade and Labor Binyamin Ben-Eliezer and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will sign an document of understandings regarding industrial cooperation in the field of renewable energy. The signing will take place in the course of Schwarzenegger's visit to Israel as part of the Saban Forum.

The agreement with California will advance strategic commerce cooperation between the State of Israel and California in the renewable energy and environmental technologies fields, by creating partnerships between Israeli firms that specialize in these fields on the one hand, and California industries and municipalities on the other. Mutual investments between the countries will increase, as will research cooperation and other coordination in these fields.

The Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor's attache on the US west coast, Sigal Admoni Ravid, said that the US clean-tech market, and especially the renewable energy market, has tremendous commercial potential for Israeli companies. “President Obama's stimulus package allots billions of dollars to projects in the water and energy fields,” she noted.

Trade with the US between the months of January and September 2009 totaled about 17 billion dollars. 12 billion of these were exports, and 5 billion were imports to Israel. This is a 12% drop compared to the same period in 2008.