New business deals between Israel and the United Arab Emirates are expected to be signed on Wednesday at the Investors Roundtable Tel Aviv, a program of the Abrahamic Business Circle.
The circle is an association of high-profile individuals from across the globe who have a shared vision of tolerance, prosperity and peace. This is its first event in Tel Aviv since being founded three years ago. Until now, it has held events in the UAE and Zurich.
Individuals from around 30 countries will be in Israel for the event, which is taking place at the Hilton Tel Aviv.
“This is a global business platform, and we are trying to bring people who have never been related to Israel and never had relations with Jewish businesses to the country,” founder Dr. Raphael Nagel told The Jerusalem Post. “We want to promote business between everybody.
“People who have never been to Israel are now attending a networking event in Israel.”
He said he was already aware of a Dutch cyber company interested in striking a deal with an Israeli artificial intelligence company and of several companies in the fields of agritech and water technology that were close to signing trade deals.
“This is a global business platform, and we are trying to bring people who have never been related to Israel and never had relations with Jewish businesses to the country.”
Dr. Raphael Nagel
“We expect actual deals to be signed,” Nagel stressed.
The event itself
The event begins at 12 p.m. and will be emceed by Pavel Kulikov, a partner in PLL Legal & Cross-Border Practice, and Aliona Zaleskaya, director of Wetel Blockchain Incubation Center.
Sessions focus on investments in the web3 economy, changes in education, the future of decarbonization, solar solutions and more.
Nagel, who lives in Dubai, said that doing business with Israel has gotten smoother over the last two years.
When the normalization agreement was signed in September 2020, it was very expensive to call Israel, for example. The UAE does not use WhatsApp and flat-rate international phone plans did not include the Jewish state. Now, he said, Israel is included, and people can communicate as much as they want.
He said he is “convinced there will be more peace signings for a very good reason: There is a lot of synergy between the Start-Up Nation of Israel and the UAE, Bahrain and the rest of the Middle East.
“I think the Middle East will be one of the key players in the new economic era,” he predicted.
Nagel highlighted the struggles and structural challenges of the European economy as well as recent economic issues, such as growing inflation, in the United States economy.
“As a region, I think we will benefit from working together. Collaboration means huge growth potential for the whole Middle East,” he said.
Nagel stressed that the Abrahamic Business Circle is not political or religious, but is solely focused on building friendships through business.
“People think there are cultural differences, but I cannot see them,” Nagel said. “When it comes to business, we are all the same.”