Business News

This week, the newly formed Oregon Business Alliance held its inaugural event at the University of Oregon facility in Portland, Oregon. In attendance were government officials from the State of Oregon, the City of Portland, and the Port of Portland. Businesspeople from the biotech, high-tech, and cleantech industries from the greater Portland area filled the White Stag Building of the University of Oregon. The room was packed with about 70 attendees. Speakers included: Ted Kulongsoki, Former Governor of Oregon; Billy Wyatt, Director of the Port of Portland; Noah Siegel, Director of International Affairs at the Office of Portland Mayor Sam Adams; Steve Rosenberg, President of the Oregon Israel Business Alliance; Jeff Katz, Secretary of the Oregon Israel Business Alliance; and Yelena Giderman, Director of Business Development at the Consulate General of Israel.

This event comes at the heels of a succesful trade delegation led by former Governor Ted Kulongoski, which concluded with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the State of Oregon and the State of Israel on cooperation in industry R&D.

During Governor Kulongoski's remarks, he spoke about his trip, and the economic vibrancy and innovation in the State of Israel. He described "the secret" to cooperation between the two sides as relating to Israel's advancement in water technologies and Oregon's expertise in forestry. Cleantech and high-tech were the industries that he believed were the natural areas of synergy between the two states.

The event was featured in Oregon Business.

The Central Bureau of Statistics announced today that Israel’s GDP increased by 7.8% in Q4 of 2010, based on an annualized, seasonally adjusted measure. Yuval Steinitz, Israel Minister of Finance, attributes the growth to the government’s economic policies such as the braking and acceleration plan, the biennial budget from two years prior, as well as the contributions of its strong private sector.

Also beneficial, Steinitz says, has been the Bank of Israel’s fiscal policies and the economic package deal that the Histadrut (General Federation of Labor in Israel) has with its employers.

Read More

Intel has announced that it plans to invest $2.7 billion in its plant located in Kiryat Gat, Israel. The funds will go primarily towards the production of the 22-nanometer chip, as a step up from the 45-nanometer the facility is currently producing. The facility is one of two Intel facilities in the world which will produce these small and powerful chips.

The break-through technology will make it possible for personal computers to be faster, lighter, and more compact. As of now, Intel is the leading manufacturer of processors, totaling over 80 percent of the world’s PC processors. With Intel plants located in five cities in Israel since 1974—Jerusalem, Kiryat Gat, Petach Tikva, Haifa, and Yakum—it is likely that if you have a PC, its processor was likely made or conceived of in Israel.

Other projects set to come out of Intel Israel include the Cedarview, a new Netbook processor, manufactured in the Jerusalem plant, which will likely pave the way for the future of Intel’s Atom processor.

For more information on Intel, please click here.

Read More

The German Ministry of Health has declared that they will add the PillCam SB (small bowel) capsule endoscopy for detecting obscure gastrointestinal bleeding to its national health basket. The Pillcam was created by Israel's Given Imaging Ltd. Since 2004, PillCam SB capsule endoscopy has been available to patients with private health insurance, approximately 10% of the German population. Now, 7.3 million Germans--90% of the population--will be covered for the PillCam SB procedure under the public health system.

Given Imaging is a world leader in GI medical devices, offering a broad portfolio of capsule solutions to visualize the gastrointestinal tract and specialty GI diagnostic solutions and high-resolution manometry. For more information on Given Imaging, please click here.