Cooperative
Agreements - "Memoranda of Understanding"
June 2008 - Governor Bill Richardson
signed an agreement of cooperation with the Israeli government to begin
a partnership that will result in more trade with New Mexico. “I
came to Israel to work together to exchange ideas, techniques and explore
investment opportunities," Governor Richardson said. The agreement,
signed together with Israeli Minister of Industry Eli Yishai, spells
out a process to create strategic partnerships to cooperate on the advancement
of joint water and energy technologies.
New Mexico Government Missions to Israel
February 2011 - Albuquerque Mayor
Richard Berry went on a trade and business development mission to Israel.
According to Mayor Berry the majority of his trip consisted of talking
to Israeli companies about opportunities in Albuquerque for their investment.
At the same time, the mayor was attending a conference of water conservation
techniques, a problem that faces both Israel and New Mexico. Watch a
news segment on his trip updates, CLICK
HERE.
June 2008 - Governor Bill Richardson
led a delegation from New Mexico on a mission to Israel with the stated
aim of bolstering bilateral trade between the two states. While in Israel,
Gov. Richardson met with numerous Israeli government officials including
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni with whom he discussed the importance of
the US and Israel standing together to combat the budding Iranian nuclear
threat. In addition, Gov. Richardson signed a cooperative agreement
with Eli Yishai, the Israeli Minister of Industry.
July 1999 - New Mexico Attorney General
Patricia Madrid joined eight other attorneys general for a trip to Israel.
The participants in the mission went to explore U.S.-Israel cooperation
in legal affairs and discussed issues including youth violence, the
death penalty, and extradition laws.
Partners
For Change
The U.S.-Israel relationship is based on the twin
pillars of shared values and mutual interests. Given this commonality of
interests and beliefs, it should not be surprising that support for Israel
is one of the most pronounced and consistent foreign policy values of the
American people.
It is more difficult to devise programs that capitalize
on the two nations' shared values than their security interests;
nevertheless, such programs do exist. In fact, these SHARED VALUE
INITIATIVES cover a broad range of areas, including the environment,
science and technology, education and health.
As analyst David Pollock noted, Israel is an advanced country with a population that surpassed eight million people in 2013 and a robust, dynamic economy that allowed it to join the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Between 2005 and 2013, Israel has represented a larger market for U.S. exports than Saudi Arabia. Although Israel's citizenry make up just 3 percent of the total region's population, Israel accounts for 25 percent of American exports in the Middle East.
"It has also been one of the top 20 foreign direct investors in the United States since 2009," Pollock confirms. He adds that "$2.25 billion of the $3 billion in annual U.S. aid to Israel comes back via Israeli purchases of U.S. military equipment - and that is just 5 percent of the total bilateral trade each year."
Today's interdependent global economy requires that
trade policy be developed at the national and state level.
Many states have recognized the opportunity for realizing
significant benefits by seeking to increase trade with Israel. New Mexico is one of 33 states that have cooperative
agreements with Israel.
In 2012, New Mexico exported over $1,294,987,495 worth
of manufacturing goods to Israel. Since 1996, New Mexico exports to
Israel have totaled more than $2,298,065,279and Israel now ranks as New Mexico’s
3rd leading trade partner.
Additionally in 2012, New Mexico received more than
$146,685.00in foreign military financing (FMF) for US military aid
to Israel. Some of those companies that have received funding through FMF in 2012 or past years
include Calculex Inc. in Las Cruces and Pulsed Power Laboratories in Edgewood.
Israel is certainly a place where potential business
and trade partners can be found. It can also be a source, however, for
innovative programs and ideas for addressing problems facing the citizens
of New Mexico.
Israel has developed a number of pioneering education programs. For example, AICE introduced an innovative Israeli
peer tutoring program to North Carolina that educators adapted for use
in the United States. Now known as Reading Together, the program is
used in 28 states. The program is designed to help students achieve
reading fluency and is mostly used for children in second grade. The
hope is that with its implementation, increasing numbers of students
will perform at grade level or above.
A range of other exciting approaches to social problems
like unemployment, environmental protection and drug abuse have been
successfully implemented in Israel and could be imported for the benefit
of Americans.
The potential for greater cooperation with Israel for
the benefit of New Mexico is limited only by the imagination.
New Mexico Firms
Profit From Business With Israel
As the only country with free trade agreements with both
the United States and the European community, Israel can act as a bridge
for international trade between the United States and Europe. Moreover,
because of the deep pool of talent, particularly in high-technology areas,
Israel provides excellent investment opportunities. Some of the nation's
largest companies, such as IBM, Microsoft, Motorola, Intel and McDonald's
have found that it is indeed profitable to do business in Israel.
More than 20 New Mexico companies have discovered the
benefits of doing business in Israel, including Lase-R Shield Inc.,
CVI Laser Corporation and Wildflower International.
Lase-R Shield sells laser safety eyewear to the Israeli
Ministry of Defense. The safety eyewear has numerous applications, it can
be used in research and development labs in universities, within industry
and for military purposes. Caryn Brown, one of Lase-R Shield’s technical
sales representatives, feels that both Israel and Lase-R Shield have
benefitted greatly from their partnership. Brown says that she "enjoys
the prompt correspondence of Israeli buyers."
CVI sells optical components used in optical lasers in
the field of medicine to Israeli high-technology companies. According to
Roy Ralston, Director of Graphics, Israel acts as a catalyst, "They
drive our product, driving the U.S. to make a better product. Israelis are
very thorough and make good trading partners. It's a great give and take
relationship."
Deborah Johnson, Chief of Operations of Wildflower
International, said that her company has been doing business with Israel
since 1995. Johnson says, "we find them very ethical, no problems with
payments or coming to a common agreement... they are extremely
trustworthy." Wildflower International provides electronic products
and telecommunications equipment for the military, universities, research
and development facilities and for medical purposes..
"We enjoy doing business with Israel, there is a
lot of respect, which is beneficial to our corporation," said Johnson.
She adds that "Israel is at the forefront of quality assurance, which
is one of the many reasons why Wildflower enjoys doing business with
Israel."
One good way to break into the Israeli market is through
a joint venture with an Israeli company. Funding for such projects is
available from the Binational
Industrial Research and Development Foundation (BIRD). BIRD funds projects in 36 states and the District of
Columbia and hundreds of companies including AOL, GE, BP Solar, Texas
Instruments and Johnson & Johnson have benefitted from BIRD grants.
The United States and Israel established BIRD in 1977
to fund joint U.S.-Israeli teams in the development and subsequent commercialization
of innovative, nondefense technological products from which both the
Israeli and American company can expect to derive benefits commensurate
with the investments and risks. Most grant recipients are small businesses
involved with software, instrumentation, communications, medical devices
and semiconductors.
Since its inception, BIRD has funded more than 800
joint high-tech R&D projects through conditional grants totaling
more than $210 million. Products developed from these ventures have
generated more than $8 billion in direct and indirect revenues for both
countries and has helped to create an estimated 20,000 American jobs.
Dr. Eli Opper, the former Israeli chair of BIRD, has
said that BIRD is a strong pillar of US-Israel industrial
cooperation and that the extreme success of BIRD has
led Israel to adopt similar models of R&D with other countries.
New Mexico companies have benefited from more than
$150,000 in BIRD grants over the last three decades.
Scientific
Innovations
New Mexico researchers are making scientific breakthroughs
and developing cutting-edge technologies in joint projects with Israeli
scientists thanks to support from the Binational
Science Foundation (BSF). BSF was established in 1972 to promote scientific relations
and cooperation between scientists from the United States and Israel.
The fund supports collaborative research projects in a wide area of
basic and applied scientific field for peaceful and non-profit purposes.
Since its inception, BSF has awarded some $480 million
through more than 4,000 grants in 45 states and the District of Columbia.
BSF-sponsored studies are highly successful
in achieving their two main goals: strengthening the US-Israel partnership
through science and promoting world-class scientific research for the
benefit of the two countries and all mankind. The BSF grants help extend research resources to achieve milestones that might
not otherwise be attainable; introduce novel approaches and techniques
to lead American researchers in new directions; confirm, clarify and
intensify research projects; and provide unmatched access to Israeli
equipment, facilities and research results that help speed American
scientific advances. BSF has documented no less than
75 new discoveries made possible by its research grants and counts 37
Nobel Prize and 19 Lasker Medical Award laureates among its joint partners.
Institutions in New Mexico have shared with their counterparts
in Israel nearly $1.1 million in BSF grants awarded
since 1996 alone. Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute and Los Alamos
National Labs are two of the main BSF funds recipients.
Matthew Kluger received a BSF grant
at Lovelace Respiratory Research in Albuquerque and is now continuing
the research at the Medical College of Georgia. He is studying how fevers
are caused. When a person develops a fever, it is dangerous if it gets
too high, so the body produces internal chemicals, which act like Tylenol,
to lower the fever. Kluger is researching the balance of the fever-reducing
and fever-enhancing chemicals in the body.
Kluger believes the partnership with Israel is
"beneficial to both labs, science and humanity." His research may
produce potential products that use new ways to reduce fevers and
inflammation.
Raymond Dean Taylor is one of 15 scientists from Los
Alamos National Labs who have received BSF grants.
Taylor, a physicist, has been collaborating with scientists at Tel Aviv
University through a number of BSF projects on research
dealing with how materials behave at high pressures. He looks at the
effects of pressure on phase transformation of matter. He has made a
number of first discoveries of materials leading to more than 150 publications,
since he started the research.
Taylor's research has been an impetus for studies around
the world researching high-pressure physics. Without that initial BSF grant, this new field would not have blossomed.
A second scientist from Los Alamos, Alan Perelson,
has received a number of BSF grants to research quantitative
models for processes in the immune system. Perelson’s research
focuses on three areas. The first is a quantitative model for the development
of patterns of skin rashes. The second is an experimental model for
the body's response to T-cell vaccination (T-cell vaccination was first
used in Israel for auto-immune system diseases such as multiple sclerosis
in which one's immune system attacks the body). Third, he has studied
the success of the immune system responses to different toxins.
Perelson believes the cooperation with his Israeli
counterparts led to a conversation that would not have taken place otherwise. BSF has acted as a bridge for experimental findings
and has pooled the talent of both countries. Perelson still collaborates
with his Israeli partner despite the fact that they no longer receive BSF funds. Their research has led to a new type of
research in which mathematical models are used to interpret biological
experiments.
BSF documented no less than 75 new
discoveries that probably would not have been possible without foundation-supported
collaboration.
Agriculture
Benefits
In 1978 the United States and Israel jointly created
the Binational Agricultural
Research and Development Fund (BARD)
to help fund programs between US and Israeli scientists for mutually
beneficial, mission-oriented, strategic and applied research into agricultural
problems. Since its inception, BARD has funded more
than 1,000 projects in 45 states and the District of Columbia with a
total investment of more than $250 million. In 2000, an independent
and external economic review of 10 BARD projects conservatively
projected more than $700 million in revenue by the end of 2010, a number
which far outweighs the total investment in all BARD projects over its 33 year existence and helps to continually strengthen
the foundation.
Most BARD projects focus on either increasing agricultural
productivity, plant and animal health or food quality and safety and
have been influential in creating new technologies in drip irrigation,
pesticides, fish farming, livestock, poultry, disease control and farm
equipment. BARD funds projects in 45 states and the
District of Columbia and at present is beginning to administer collaborative
efforts between Australia, Canada and Israel as well. It is difficult
to break down the impact on a state-by-state basis, but overall, BARD-sponsored
research has generated sales of more than $500 million, tax revenues
of more than $100 million and created more than 5,000 American jobs.
New Mexico institutions have shared grants worth more
than $400,000 since 1979.
New Mexico State’s C. Sengupta-Gopalas researches the
lack of methionine, an amino acid, in alfalfa and legumes, which are used
to feed animals. A methionine rich diet allows cows to produce more milk
and sheep to produce more wool. Currently scientists are adding synthetic
methionine to the legumes, but the animals' intake is still not high
enough.
Sengupta-Gopalas is taking genes from maize, which
foster the production of methionine, and is adding them to alfalfa. She
believes working with Israelis has been "extremely helpful." She
has received the maize gene from them and has shared techniques with them.
BARD research done outside the state
also benefits New Mexico. For example, pecan tree growers can benefit
from BARD projects to save 68,000 acres of pecan trees
planted in inappropriate soil in New Mexico.
Other Cooperative
Programs
New Mexico State is a member of the International
Arid Lands Consortium, a Congress-funded independent, nonprofit
organization established in 1989 that conducts research, develops applications
in arid and semiarid land technologies, and applies its projects in
countries around the world including the U.S. and Israel.
Israel generic drug and medical device company Panaxia entered into an agreement with U.S.-based medical cannabis distribution company Ultra Health in June 2015, to build a cannabis processing plant in the state. As part of the project Panaxia pledged to purchase $250,000 worth of merchandise. Panaxia has developed a precise method of extraction for the active molecules in the cannabis plants, allowing producers to make medical cannabis products with exact doses.
Sister Cities
NEW
MEXICO . . . . . .. . .. . . ..
. . .. . . .. .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ISRAEL |
Albuquerque |
|
State
Contacts:
Hillel
Campus Profiles
Jewish Federation of Greater Albuquerque
5520 Wyoming Blvd., NE
Albuquerque, NM 87109
Tel. 505-821-3214
Fax. 508-821-3351
Sherwin Pomerantz, Director
New Mexico Economic Development Department
c/o Atid EDI Ltd
Bldg. 2, Har Hotzvim, P.O. Box 45005
Jerusalem
Israel 91450
Tel. 25710199
Fax. 25710713
Email. [email protected]
URL: www.atid-edi.com/nm.htm
