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ISRAEL CANADA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE NEWSLETTER Issue No. 5 April-May 2004 |
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Contents
From the Desk of the Economic Attaché in Toronto Headlines
From Israeli Newspapers If
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A meeting with the Canadian Ambassador in Israel, Mr.
Donald Sinclair, will take place on May 3rd at the Canadian
Embassy. An announcement has
been sent to all the members of the Chamber. A seminar on how to do business in Canada will take place
on May 10th at the Israel Export Institute. Participants will include the
Canadian Ambassador and the Canadian Trade Attaché. At the seminar we will present the Mentoring Program of Canadian Businessmen for
Israeli Companies called “Shaking
Hands with Israel’s Industry”.
For details about and registration for the seminar press here. The Chamber’s Board met with a visiting delegation of
Christian supporters of Israel and explained the activities of the
Chamber. A member of the
delegation became the first volunteer for the “Shaking Hands” project. We intend to sustain contact with
other groups in order to develop business relationships with this community. The Chamber’s Board met with General Abraham Ben Sasson
(Ret.), the Director of the Tel Aviv Development Fund. It was agreed that the activities of
the Fund would appear on the chamber’s website and that both parties
would cooperate in the future. Ephraim Shaham, the Israeli Trade Attaché in Canada,
expressed great interest in the “Shaking Hands” project. He agreed to cooperate with and
assist in the promotion of the project. Air Canada acceded to the Chamber’s request to grant a 5%
discount to Chamber members. |
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I met with the President of Commercial Alcohols Inc.,
a warm Jew who is interested in assessing the potential for cooperation and
investment in R&D in Israeli companies. His company is Canada’s biggest producer of industrial
application ethanol with a yearly turnover of 170 million dollars. I had a series of meeting with the management of the Aber
company, a raw diamond supplier.
The company expressed interest and willingness to expand their
activities in Israel and is weighing the possibility of opening an office in
Israel. Visit to Edmonton: An exhibition of Israeli products took place in
Edmonton. Around 20 Israeli
products were on display: foodstuffs, bedwear, footwear, Judaica, cosmetics
(from the Dead Sea), wines and other.
The exhibition attracted close to 1,000 visitors, thanks in part to
good preliminary media coverage in newspapers and by way of
advertisements. The local Jewish
community in cooperation with local storeowners and businessmen will hold
another exhibition in the coming year with our support. This will be on a larger scale
in light of the positive response of visitors and Canadian importers who
previously had not brought Israeli goods to Edmonton. Contacts with local businessmen were
established in the fields of cosmetics, Judaica, jewelry etc. in Alberta
province. I met with the Mayor of Edmonton – Bill Smith. I provided
details about Israel’s industrial capabilities. The Mayor expressed an interest in hosting business
delegations of various cities in Israel and was invited to visit Israel. I met with the leaders of the local Jewish
community. I gave a lecture to
about 25 of them on Israel’s economy, industry and exports. Some of them were
businessmen with a wide range of contacts with local industry. I encouraged them to engage in
commercial activity and cooperation with Israeli industry. I met with Mark Norris, the Minister of Industry, Trade
and Commerce of Alberta province.
He is interested in business cooperation with Israel and intends to
visit Israel during the present calendar year. We agreed to remain in contact in order to plan his trip
in the best way possible. Visit to Calgary I met with the Economic Development Company of
Calgary. I met with the
President of the company and two other managers. We expressed a mutual interest in developing contacts
between our industries. We
agreed that the company would circulate my particulars to the members of the
company in order to find potential distributors of Israeli products in the
region as well as to find information about Israeli products by way of our
office in Toronto. I met with ten Calgary businessmen. We agreed to sustain
personal contact in order to find subjects suitable for cooperation and
investment in Israel. I met with the Calgary Chamber of Commerce and its President Murray Sigler and his staff. They agreed to commence cooperation by circulating the details of our offices in Toronto to all their members (6,400 businesses) as well as to bring to their attention the fact that we are willing to serve them in creating cooperative relationships with Israeli companies. |
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Exhibitions
and Events
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On May 13th in Ottawa, representatives
of Israeli and Canadian military industries will meet. The purpose of the meeting is to
demonstrate the abilities of the various companies to determine the
possibilities for cooperation. For additional information see Canada-Israel Defence Industry Day Book Expo CanadaShow Type:
Tradeshow with conf. CUEE -
Canadian Utilities Equipment & Engineering Expo
Comm Canada Communications Primary
Care Today Plast-Ex 2004 PACex
International 2005 |
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Provided by the generosity of the “Ifat” Company The Canadian diamond mining company Aber will shortly open an
office in Tel Aviv. The raw
diamond buyer from Canada will lessen the Israeli diamond industry’s
dependence on the DeBeers syndicate. (Globes, April 16) The Multilock company has won several international tenders to
secure Canadian public buildings.
In doing so the company has increased its business in Canada by 40%.
(Globes, April 9) Opti Canada (a subsidiary
of Ormat) has raised 228 million dollars for a project to extract and
upgrade heavy oil at Long Lake. (Globes, April 9) BHP rejected a purchase
offer of two billion dollars for the Canadian diamond mine “Akaty” made by
Dan Gerthaler (Maariv, March 29) A new Customs regulation
requires importers to declare the classification of a cargo according to the
bill of lading of origin. This
directive is intended to avoid incidents whereby import report is different
from the bill of lading of origin. (Chamber of Commerce Magazine #32, March) The Kalil company was
chosen to supply window frames for rail coaches built by Bombadier of
Canada, considered to be one of the leading railroad manufacturers in the
world. (Globes, March 18) On June 1 when the cooperation
agreement between Air Canada and El-Al comes to an end Air
Canada will increase its weekly flights from five weekly to one daily in
order to compete with El-Al on the Tel Aviv-Toronto line. El-Al is also expected to
increase the number of its flights.
Air Canada will also inaugurate new flights from Toronto to
South America in June. (Ha’Aretz, March 18) The Israeli startup Cognifit
will supply the Canadian Driving School Young Drivers (which trains 50
thousand drivers a year) with the DriveFit Program to improve driving
skills. The value of the deal is
5.5 million Canadian dollars (Tasiyot, March 14) Creo raised 50 million dollars in
the United States in order to finance new purchases in the areas of digital
printing and investment in R&D.
Creo is registered as a Canadian company but most of its
activities are in Israel. (Yediot Ahronot, March 16) The Canadians company Daniya
Sibus and Akon will compete for a tender to pave the road that will
connect Modi’in and Rishon LeZion (Ma’ariv, March 15) New Age Networks will market in Canada and the
United States the “Konekstar” – the broadband communications service of
Gilat. (Globes, March 10) The Canadian publishing company Kahn-West
owned by the Espar family is exploring the possibility of purchasing the
Jerusalem Post (Ma’ariv, March 7) The Transportation Ministry is
considering the revocation of future connections to Bombadier following
its withdrawal from the tender for the light railroad from Tel Aviv to
Jerusalem. Despite this, the
Directorate of the Israel Railways is in negotiations with Bombadier
to purchase 23 coaches for 1.5 million dollars. The Dan company is considering a suit against Bombadier,
their partner in the tender.
(Globes, February 27) Real Estate Investments A group of businessmen from the
United States is formulating a proposal to invest 100 million dollars in
building a luxury residential neighborhood of 1500 units next to Kiryat
Malachi (Globes, March 26) The Canadian group Elad controlled
by Yitzhak Tshuvah recently purchased 8000 living units for 800 million
Canadian dollars. The company is
planning a stock offering of 250 million Canadian dollars (Globes, March 26) The Jerusalem Economic Company
(controlled by Fishman) is conducting negotiations to purchase 90% of 3
commercial centers in Canada.
The investment is estimated at 106 million Canadian dollars (Globes,
March 24) Samurai Real Estate (owned by
Tshuvah) purchased two apartment buildings in Canada valued at 100 million
shekels. (Yediot Ahronot, March 24) |
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The United States Government’s website Market
Research Library is the best free web source for reports on Canadian
industry. A search for surveys
on various Canadian industrial branches (from January 2002 to April 2004)
turned up 30 reports including the following: Knowledge Management Tools, Logistics and
Transportation Services,
Canadian Plastic Products Industry, Advertising Services, Architecture, Construction and
Engineering Services,
IT Outsourcing Services, Cosmetics and Toiletries, Hospital Medical Equipment, Management
Consulting Services - Marketing Consultants, The Canadian Water Sports Equipment
Industry, Access
Control Systems, Boilers
(Steam & Vapor Generation, Canada’s Oilsands, Heavy Construction Equipment, Meat Processing Equipment, Municipal Solid Waste Equipment,
Ontario’s Publicly Funded Health Care Market, Selling IT Products to the Canadian Federal Government, JEWELRY OF PRECIOUS METALS, Nuclear Power Generating Equipment, Automotive Aftermarket Parts & Accessories, Commercial Refrigeration &
Air Conditioning Equipment. The reports are in a unified format that includes a
summary of the market conditions, market trends, potential, problems in
market penetration and special issues pertaining to each branch. In addition to the branch surveys the website contains
hundreds of short bulletins on business issues (International Market
Insight), A general yearly
report on the country (Country Commercial Guide) as well as additional
information. The site is aimed at American companies and students and
requires registration. |
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To subscribe or to unsubscribe from the Newsletter please
notify Chamber
Mail. To advertise in the Newsletter please contact the Chamber.
The Israel-Canada
Chamber of Commerce, 32 Ben Yehuda Street, El-Al Building, room 1107, Editing
and Translation by courtesy of the Ziv Group |