Ministry of Finance – Economic Overview of Israel
Sunday, November 27th, 2011
The Israeli economy is a diverse open market economy. Being a relatively young state in the modern era, Israel is recognized as a developed market by many major indices. Israel also became a member of the OECD in 2010.
Israel is also home to many international high tech companies, who understand its cultural and economic benefits, as well as its innovative spirit. Along with local Israeli firms who became an international success, both international and local firms make Israel worthy of its description as ‘The Silicon Wadi’.
Israel is known for its unique entrepreneurial and innovative spirit, and excels in:
- Research and development
- Human capital
- Entrepreneurship
- Venture capital availability
- Utility patents per million population
The Israeli economy is considered to be benefitting from several cultural characteristics of the Israeli society, such as:
- Challenging norms and ‘out of the box’ way of thinking
- Creativity at working under limited resources
- Direct, informal and task oriented approach
The Israeli economy also showed great resilience during the latest global economic crisis. In 2010, Israel was ranked 1st at the ‘Resilience of the Economy’ Index, as part of the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report (WEF GCR).