Hyderabad, June 23: Israel has made several
innovations in water management and irrigation and it could
cooperate with India to improve on these lines for development
of agriculture here, Israel's Ambassador to India Mark Sofer
said on Tuesday.
"Israel is the world's largest producer of milk and
has almost perfected the art of using water judiciously for
irrigation purpose and also on minimum usage of pesticides for
agriculture," Sofer said.
He was addressing a business meet on 'Indo-Israel
Opportunities for Trade and Investment' at the Federation
House organised by the Federation of Andhra Pradesh Chambers
of Commerce and Industry here, a release said.
Since 1992, India has become a major trade partner of
Israel and the volume of bilateral trade between India and
Israel had grown to about USD 4 billion till 2008, he said.
Sofer said that Israel is keen on investing resources
to assist Indian and Israeli companies to forge alliances
especially in the areas of Water and Environmental
Technologies, Renewable Energy Resources, Home Land Security
and Bio-Technology.
Commenting on Renewable Energy Technology, Sofer said
Israel is one of the few countries to mandate Solar PV in all
its new civil constructions and first in the world to mandate
Solar hot-water in the upcoming new buildings of the country.
As a top national priority, Homeland Security in
Israel has created a diversified and cutting edge security
industry, adding innovation to existing technologies as well
as developing new ones, Sofer said.
Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly former Speaker K R
Suresh Reddy said Israeli expertise and technology can be
emulated and implemented in agriculture here by usage of water
resources including drip irrigation.
FAPCCI president K Harishchandra Prasad said both
Andhra Pradesh and Israel offer substantial opportunities in
the field of agriculture and food-processing, biotech,
aerospace and other sectors.
"India and Israel could cooperate in the field of
agriculture for increasing agriculture production by adopting
latest technology," he said.
AP Tourism Development Corporation chairman Swaranjit
Sen also spoke.
Bureau Report
First Published: Wednesday, June 24, 2009, 00:37