In photo: Israel Ambassador to the Philippines His Excellency Ilan Fluss
Text and photo by Monsi A. Serrano
Israel Ambassador to the Philippines Ilan Fluss welcomed the new administration and vowed to continue all the initiatives started before the previous admininistration and even level up especially in the field of technology and innovation, agriculture, defense and economic relations.
Speaking to the media last Thursday at his residence, Ambassador Fluss said, “The Embassy has expanded in the less than two years. We have an economic attaché and a defense attache and I think this shows the importance of our relations with the Philippines in those areas.”
However, Fluss underscored that his top priorities woud be on technology and innovation by getting the Philippines and Israel closer in these areas.
“This is something that I’m pushing and I’m dedicating a lot of my resources in this area. It is both on the governmental level. But more than that also private sector and centers of innovation to get citizen innovation in the Philippines connected to centers of innovation in Israel. As you know, Israel is a country of innovation, a startup nation, and all kinds of technology. These innovations are relevant for the Philippines to address some local challenges in the country,” Fluss explained.
“We have the innovation ecosystem in the Philippines and we will make it work through the local companies and innovators here. We will be developing specific innovations that bring solutions the challenges here in the Philippines,” he said.
Apart from technology and innovation, Ambassador Fluss revealed that the Israeal and Philippines are expected to establish a Joint Economic Commission between the Israel Ministry of Economy and the Department of Trade and Industry.
The “agreement on the promotion and protection of investments” has already been concluded and will only need to be signed”, Fluss said.
Ambassador Fluss also revealed that other interests of israeli companies to investing in the Philippines in mobility, agriculture, defense, health, and business process outsourcing (BPO) which are all part of technology and innovation.
“Most of the innovations that we are looking at are going towards the big markets. So I believe that if you show the opportunity to specific sources of innovation, we can also work together in the Philippines, which is a big country and a big economy, and it will also be an entry point towards ASEAN (market).
When asked about how the Israel government will work with the new adminsitration, Fluss said, “The Israeli government is also ready to work with the incoming administration and hoped that the two nations could further improve their overall bilateral relations”.
“We have wait for the administration to come into office, together we will be identifying priorities and specific issues where we can work together. I will also add economic relations and innovation. We hope to see very soon a few agreements signed between our two countries,”
Fluss also noted that traditionally, the Philippines and Israel have close relations with the Philippines and he doesn’t see any reason why it will not continue. However, he pointed out that this bilateral relationship must take the new heights.
