by our correspondent, Gandhinagar, 30 January 2013

Israel Ambassador to India Alon Ushpiz paid courtesy visit to the Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi today. Mr.Alon Ushpiz and his colleagues expressed keenness in expanding Israel’s partnership with Gujarat in various new areas of development and strengthening its friendly relationship with the State.

Israel Ambassador congratulated Mr.Modi for Gujarat’s all-round development under his leadership. He discussed the possibility of partnership between Israel government and the Israeli companies with Gujarat in the sectors like agriculture, water management, industrial co-operation, power and human resource development. Israel Consul General Mrs. Orna Sagiv also remained present in the meet.

The Chief Minister talked about the State’s plan to organize biennial Vibrant Gujarat Agro Tech Fair from 2014, following to the success of Vibrant Gujarat Global Investors’ Summit and invited Israel to become country partner in the event. Mr.Alon responded positively to the Chief Minister’s call, inviting Gujarat in the water conference in Israel which is scheduled in the next October.

Referring to the Israel’s huge success in agriculture with minimum usage of water the Chief Minister expressed desire to arrange a tour, taking Gujarat MLAs to Israel to study its agro technology and water management programmes.

Mr. Alon Ushpiz suggested building a corpus fund for expanding partnership between both the places in the fields of industrial development and Research and Development. In the backdrop of Gujarat emerging as a magnet centre for industrial investment and the Israel government and Israeli companies are already having ties with Gujarat, the discussions were made for setting up of centre of excellence with the Gujarat’s agricultural universities and for partnering in agro research and human resource development.

The Chief Minister invited the partnership of Israel government and Israeli companies in the state government’s plan to develop economic models of water management and water recycling in around 50 cities of Gujarat. He also talked about the possibilities of partnership in the development of defense manufacturing sector.

Israel Ambassador described the meet fruitful in strengthening mutual partnership and relationship between the two places.

Principal Secretary to Industries M.Sahu and the Secretary to the Chief Minister A.K.Sharma were also present during the meet.