2 billion in 2005 with two thirds in Europe

Floret which it represent the half, the Israeli high technology today collect the good results. Third high-tech world centre after the Silicon Valley and Boston, Israel comes to supplant the Canada into second place by the number of companies listed on the Nasdaq, with 120 firms. Similarly, the country figure rated foreigners on European financial markets, including the first in the AIM of London and Euronext. 2005 is a historical turning point. "For the first time, it is has had more Israeli companies listed in Europe to the United States", said Edouard Cukierman, President of the Bank of affairs Cukierman & Co. Investment House, to the origin of most of the introductions on the stock market, the first at the Brogniard Palace in 1997. Some 80 Israeli fund raised nearly $ 1.2 billion in 2005, with two thirds in Europe.

Osmosis University-industry

This success is based on exceptional potential of grey matter, the true one "first matter" of the country. Israel has the highest proportion of engineers in the world: 140 for 10,000 people mostly in biochemistry is 2 times more than in the United States and 4 times more than in France. Israel has also two Nobel Prize in chemistry in the biotech. The country has benefited, in the 1990s, the contribution of a wave of immigrants of high-quality, engineers from the former USSR. The State is immediately adapted to these unfamiliar inventors of capitalism. He has put in place 26 incubators to adapt their ideas to the market. And R & D absorbs 4.5 of GDP, compared to 2.2 in the United States or France.

In addition, universities work in osmosis with the industries. It is the Weizmann Institute, which has developed the treatment for multiple sclerosis today a quarter of the revenues of the company providing Teva, world number one of the generic drug. "There is not an Israeli academic who has filed an industrial patent!", note Daniel Rouach, Professor at the Technion, condensed Polytechnique, Mines and power plant.

Finally, there is another centre universitaire, informal one: the army. Military information and the air force, the best two units R & d, are a melting pot for young Israelis who, for three years, have the opportunity to develop rare tools and then founded their own company in civilian applications.

Weapons-related businesses

Other privileged soil, two companies related to armaments, Rafael, species of blockhouse in R & D for the Department of defence, which includes 2,000 engineers, and IAI (Industrial Aircraft Industries), the largest Israeli industrial. There, emerging ideas and networks of people knowing their respective strengths. That is why was born Check Point. The leader and inventor of the computer firewall is a system for the protection of military networks, designed by three Israelis belonging to the same unit. Same thing for the first "camera pill" for filming an intestine, marketed by Given Imaging, number one medical imaging; It is derived from a minicaméra developed in a military unit. The Protocol MP3 players, it fired an IDF intelligence unit data compression algorithm. And flat antennas pasted on a wall, sold by MTI, have their origin in an antenna installed on missile heads... But this treasure is still threatened in the long term by the emergence of Asian markets. For Emmanuel Kadoche, lawyer in a firm specializing in the high-tech, "Israel has a head start because there is little involved in the manufacture of high-tech and is little affected by the cost of labour." We should anticipate. The Israelis also invest in Asia and create development centres.