Business delegation headed by Olmert to visit India

Mr. Ehud Olmert Minister of Industry Trade and Labor will visit India in early December. Olmert will head a 100-member business delegation of Israeli high-tech, defense and security executives, biotechnology, infrastructures, environment, agriculture. The delegation will visit, during their stay, New Delhi, Mumbai (Bombay), and Bangalore.
 
He will also visit Tata Industries' high-tech center. This will be the first visit to India by an Israeli minister since the Congress Party won elections earlier this year. In a press release the foreign trade department of the Ministry of Industry said that Israel's exports to India which consist mainly of diamonds and precious stones (69%), machinery and devices (17%), chemicals products (10%), rose 53% in January-September 2004 to $759 million, while imports rose 26% to $853 million.
 
Bilateral trade totaled $1.61 billion, and the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor foreign trade administration's predicts that it will reach $2 billion for 2004 as a whole. The Ministry said that the proportion of high-tech exports increased this year at the expense of diamonds exports.