Israel’s Minister for Economy and Industry Nir Barkat is in India for the CII summit. He met External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal. In an interview with The Indian Express, he talked about the possible areas of cooperation, the fate of the Adani investments, the situation in West Asia and the impact on India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor due to the tension in the region. Edited excerpts: What is the agenda of your visit? I think India and Israel have huge opportunities together…we take the opportunities very seriously, especially when we see changes in geopolitics. India has been climbing very quickly in its economy… a hub for international ways of doing business. This is new…and I believe it'll continue. Now, Israel is the land of innovation, but we're tiny. We are less than 10 million people, and so we have to rely on strategic partners, global strategic partners, to exploit the potential of new innovation, and that's where ‘one plus one equals three’. What are the possible areas of cooperation that you are discussing with the Indian counterparts? I think the security and homeland security is certainly one that has existed for many years. We have a handful of companies we share our experience with, and India is one of them. But we have to go to the more commercial areas of agro tech and food tech and aqua tech, desert tech. We bring solutions to the major challenges, not just in Israel, but we're part of the world. There are some bribery charges against Adani in the US, and Adani is a major investor in Israel. can this impact investments in Israel? It's not an issue for Israel. It's not an Israeli issue, and we're focusing on how to improve the relationship with the foreign investors. We welcome Indian investors. How do you view the current state of conflict in West Asia emanating from the war in Gaza, then against Hezbollah and its impact on the wider region? If you look at the geopolitics of the Western Asia, you find, especially now when President Trump is getting into office, that the US, Israel and others are going to be focused on the evil axis, the jihadi access between Iran, Qatar and the proxies around Israel. They are the biggest source of terror and instability in our region. We in Israel strive to have stability, to collaborate and expand the Abraham Accords with the Saudis and others. We're interested in getting more and more alignment of the moderates and the coalition of the Western world against the challenges that Jihad from Iran poses. I think that the alignment that is now forming is against Iran… they want to have nuclear bomb, it's a huge threat for Israel, which we will not allow, and the fact that they created the proxy strategy and went after us, they actually admitted to train, fund and instruct Hamas to open up October 7 for derailing the Abraham accord with the Saudis. So, now we have to go back and get the things on track with the Saudis and stabilise the region. In Lebabnon, Beirut can be the Paris of the Middle East. It always strives to be there, but it's been taken hostage by Hezbollah, and they become a platform to launch attacks on Israel. So we're going after them. Lebanon has to decide what it wants to do. Gaza is a different story. Gaza, we have two goals. First is to make sure Hamas does not survive… they will be replaced by people that recognise Israel. And the second, of course, is to get our hostages, 101 hostages, back. How do you see the instability in the region impacting IMEC (India-Europe-Middle East Economic Corridor)? We have to defeat terror and jihad, the radicals…. we're in the process of doing that. The region will be open for business. In Israel, I'm an entrepreneur, and instability, I feel like fish in the water. We thrive where other people may stutter. We thrive in unstable ecosystems. We do $160 billion export now. And my goal is between 15 to 20 years to get to a trillion dollars…We can accomplish that by collaboration globally. India has a huge opportunity to help us get there.
