Israel-India Business Guide - Agriculture &Water
8
Israel’sWater Industry uses
cutting-edge technology to
remain world leaders
Variety of incentives offered to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship in the field
E
xports of Israel’swater industry standat approximately
1.4 billion dollars annually (2010 figure) and aremainly
related to emitter products for agriculture, water
management solutions as well as products in other fields.
Over 600 companies operate in water-related industries
including approximately 100 start-up companies dealing
with a variety of products and technologies.
An important field in which Israel is essentially the only
experienced player in the world is wastewater treatment,
purification and water reuse in agriculture and industry.
Israel has been reusing its wastewater for agricultural
irrigation for over 60 years and now reuses more than 75%
of its wastewater in agriculture.
Due to the shortage of water in the world and the desire
of most nations to improve their utilization of existing
water sources, find alternative water sources and promote
new technology, Israel is turning to countries around the
world and proposing collaborations on the transfer of
information of existing technologies, the development of
new technologies and the preparation of national and even
international standardization (at a later date) in these fields.
Technologies existing in Israel’s water market:
•
Water LeakageTechnologies (identification, treatment
and prevention)
•
Water Safety / Security Technologies
•
AdvancedWastewater Treatment Technologies (post-
secondary treatment)
•
Advanced Desalination Technologies
•
Novel Water Production Technologies
•
System Integrators
•
Biological Arrays Technologies (e.g., algae harvesting)
•
Machinery and Filtration Equipment
Water R&D Platforms
Industrial R&D
The Office of the Chief Scientist (OCS) of the Israeli
Ministry of Economy is responsible for implementing
the government's policy of encouraging and supporting
industrial research and development in Israel via the Law
for the Encouragement of Industrial R&D. OCS provides a
variety of support programs that operate on an annual
budget of approximately US$ 300 million. This is spent
on about 1,000 projects undertaken by 500 companies.
These programs have helped make Israel a major center
of hi-tech entrepreneurship.
The main OCS program (the R&D Fund) supports R&D
projects of Israeli companies by offering conditional
grants of up to 50% of the approved R&D expenditure.
Magnet - Technological Infrastructure for the
Industry
TheMAGNETprogram is intended toprovidea competitive
position for Israel’s industry with regard to state-of-the-art
technologies of worldwide interest. The new technologies
are to be developed in cooperative ventures between the
industry and leading academic scientific research in the
field and they will provide the basis for new high-tech
products and processes.
The Tnufa program
is designed to encourage and
support an individual entrepreneur in his initial efforts
to build a prototype, register a patent, design a business
plan, etc. Grants of up to 85% of the approved expenses
for a maximum of $50,000 for each project are provided.
The Magneton and Noffar programs
are designed to
support applied academic research in all areas and especially
in biotechnology and nanotechnology in order to promote
the transfer of the technology to industry. Grants are up to
66% and 90% of the approved expenses respectively.
The Incubators Program
Technological incubators are support corporations that give
fledgling entrepreneurs an opportunity to develop their
innovative technological ideas and set up new businesses
in order to commercialize them.
For more information, please visit Israel’s Economy office
website:
Source: IsraelNewTech
Israel’sWater Industry
