אלבום חברות התעשייה וההיי-טק המובילות בישראל

initial income from taxes, but nothing beyond. It is much more logical to continue the process In Israel. To take these inventions and produce their products in Israel; to turn from a start- up nation to a scale-up nation . We have the technologies, we have excellent personnel, we have all the necessary tools at our disposal. There is no reason for us to export the ideas, and not manufacture them. Invented in Israel - it’s an honor, made in Israel - it’s also a livelihood . That’s the difference. The contribution of such a process to Israel’s economic resilience is several times higher than an exit, no matter how successful. In this subject I see one of my main tasks. To enable the suggested transition, we need to make some adjustments in the industry, the first of which is raising productivity. This is an essential component of our competitiveness. Another component is the quality of the workforce. Our foundation is excellent, but it requires training and adaptation of workers to the current processes of advanced production. The severe unemployment caused by the Covid-19 crisis brought with it an opportunity as well. At once, a fine workforce was vacated in considerable numbers. We can take people in their twenties and thirties today and offer them technological training for industry in specific, non-theoretical channels, at the end of which they will be able to return to the working segment. Indeed, the union’s council has launched a training program for workers who have been laid off or discharged, with tracks for those in their fifties and sixties. The workforce exists; it only needs to be trained. We’ll probably be in full employment again, and then we’ll need all that fresh cadre. One of the most difficult problems facing Israeli industry today is the decline in its part in the GDP. If in the not-too-distant past - a decade or two ago - it accounted for 20% of GDP, today it stands at only 13%. It is true that today the high-tech industry, consisting of close to 300 companies, adds another 9% of GDP and is growing nicely. The high-tech industry joined the Manufacturers’Association a few years ago, but my ambition is to return to the share of the industry without high-tech, to its previous state, i.e. 20 percent of GDP. Together with high- tech, we need to reach about a third of GDP. This would be an indication that the Israeli economy is a healthy and prosperous economy. Why? Because when you manufacture industry, you raise the average wage, increase the earning capacity, even in the periphery. This is followed by, of course, trade and services. All segments are rising and thriving together. Increasing the share of industry in GDP will bring another desirable turning point in my eyes: exports will take off even more. Even today, exports exceed imports, in part because of the export of “software and cyber services” (software and cyber are defined in the world as services, even though it is an industry par excellence). The average per capita income in Israel is about $40,000 per year. If we push exports up - we can increase it, say, to $50,000, and then private consumption will increase, and imports will also increase. We are nine million people and if we earn more, we will probably also buy more. In this way the industry will become an accelerator for the entire economy, and we will become an even more prosperous country than today. I will not be alarmed by the increase in imports. Increasing productivity, training workers and advanced mechanization are the key to the development of the industry and making it more competitive. To achieve these critical goals, state involvement is also required. This involvement is measured not only in funding training for employees but also in the level of regulation. If Israel becomes a country where the authorities are fighting against industry - we will not achieve our goals. If the state does not give a boost to the industry and we do not understand that it must not be brought to a situation where regulation is stifling,