China seeks to cooperate in more sectors with Israeli hi-tech startups
China is seeking to cooperate with Israel in more sectors in the high-tech industry under the backdrop of the “innovative comprehensive partnership” established between the two countries.
This was the common feeling felt by officials, entrepreneurs and experts from China and Israel who attended the 6th China-Israel Hi-tech Investment Summit held Sunday in Haifa, a northern coastal city in Israel.
The hi-tech cooperation between China and Israel has been further expanded from sectors such as agriculture, medicine and biology, to more cutting-edge sectors including life sciences, smart cities, aging related technologies, robotics and 3D printing, according to attendees of the summit.
These important hi-tech sectors are also what Chinese and Israeli entrepreneurs at the summit are eager to cooperate on in the near future and are viewed widely as having huge market potential. In particular, aging technology is seen an important sector for China, which has a large and increasing aging population.
China and Israel are seeking deep collaboration in the hitech industry and the collaboration has mutual bases, said Yona Yahav, mayor of Haifa city in an interview with Xinhua.
“We enjoy every moment of this collaboration and this summit here shows that we have a good ground upon which to expand relations,” Yahav noted.
Haifa is a center of hi-tech and also a center of universities, and has four sister cities in China, including Shanghai, Shenzhen, Chengdu and Shantou.
That is why China and Israel are collaborating not only on a business basis but also a cultural basis, Yahav added.
And it’s a two way street. While Chinese companies are hunting for cooperation opportunities in Israel, the latter is also encouraging its hi-tech companies to look to China.
China’s efforts of encouraging mass entrepreneurship and innovation became a hot topic at the summit.
Experts deemed that these efforts are expected to create better opportunities for China and Israel to conduct much broader and deeper hi-tech cooperation.
It is a correct and wise action taken by China to push forward innovation and it is expected that the innovation environment would be greatly improved, said Dan Shechtman, a Nobel Prize winner in chemistry and a professor of Israel Institute of Technology, told Xinhua.
“China is not only a huge manufacturing country, but will become a huge innovative country in the future,” Shechtman believes.
China is doing very well and it is wonderful to see many Chinese delegations coming to Israel for hi-tech cooperation, Shechtman added.
About 200 delegates from China and Israel were attracted to attend the summit, organized by Messila, an Israeli startup mainly focusing on medical robotics.
At the summit, Zhuhaibased Huafa Group signed a memorandum of understanding with Haifa Economic Corporation for future cooperation in the sectors of smart cities and life sciences.
Israel, which is known as the “nation of startups,” has a level of expenditure on research and development accounting for 4.3 percent of its GDP in 2016, ranking top in the world.
Today, about 6,000 startups are running in the hi-tech field in Israel and about 300 R&D centers are under operation by international companies in the country.