Israelis poor command of English is a growing problem for high-tech - Israel News haaretz.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from haaretz.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Shoshanna Solomon is The Times of Israel s Startups and Business reporter
Illustrative: Safety jackets hang at a factory in southern Israel on March 13, 2018. (AP/Ariel Schalit)
Marian Cohen, the chairman of Israel’s Mer Group, has overcome many crises in his 36 years at the tech holding firm, from rocket attacks hampering production and deliveries to a credit crunch in the Great Recession of 2008.
But the strengthening of the Israeli shekel against the US dollar is creating an “existential crisis” that outstrips those other challenges, he says, leaving him and other industrialists struggling for a response.
“In the first Lebanon war we knew we had to grit our teeth and go on, and during Operation Protective Edge there were rockets flying over Ashkelon,” said Cohen, 64, referring to the 1982 war and the 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict, respectively. “Both were existential crises, one could say. But we knew that it would end one day. During the 2008-2009 financial crisis we
It s not right that Israeli high tech is foreign owned
BATM CEO Zvi Marom warns about Israel s high tech future, while the sector is mainly foreign owned, and says the vaccination won t beat Covid-19.
BATM Advanced Communications Ltd. (LSE: BVC) CEO Zvi Marom is ending six years as chairman of the Israeli High-Tech Association. This position, along with his company’s areas of expertise - which includes infectious diseases and testing equipment for infectious diseases - as well as his close relationship with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have put him close to the decision-making centers of power during the Covid-19 crisis. But he provides a harsh assessment of Israel s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and also warns about the precariousness of Israel s high tech future, while most of the sector remains under foreign ownership.