Excerpt from PM Netanyahu's Remarks to the Third Meeting of the China-Israel
Joint Committee on Innovation Cooperation
(Communicated by the Prime Minister's Media Adviser)

Following is an excerpt from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's remarks
earlier today (Tuesday, 21 March 2017), in Beijing, to the Third Meeting of
the China-Israel Joint Committee on Innovation Cooperation:

"The innovation conference is crucial because I believe that innovation is
crucial for the future of our countries, indeed for the future of the world.

There was a book that caught my attention when we were looking at the
exhibit outside. It was an old book. It goes back many centuries, by one of
our great thinkers and teachers, Rambam, Maimonides, and it’s translated
into Chinese. Why is it important? Because the first internet, the 'Jewish
internet', goes back over 1,000 years. We had communities of Jews scattered
in various places, some in Europe, some in Yemen, some in Asia, and they
would ask questions of the rabbis, of the very big scholars – questions and
from generation to generation these questions grew, and sometimes it would
take months – months – for a letter, a query, a 'text message', to arrive
and then several more months until an answer came.

And this was constantly improved. There was, as they say, a cloud of
learning and scholarship. We're always seeking to find new approaches. This
Jewish tradition is very much at the heart of what we are doing in the
common quest for innovation, in the Israeli contributions to the development
of the new economy, the internet economy, and it’s only natural that our two
ancient peoples, who have always prized scholarship, learning, will now
connect in the modern era to lead the great changes that are taking place.

I believe that the future belongs to those countries that innovate. I
believe that there's no area in our lives that will not be technologized.
Everything – everything – is being technologized. Everything – water, air,
food, transport, communications, energy. Everything is being technologized
by this innovation.

And those countries and those companies that have the edge of innovation are
the ones who are going to succeed. Further, I believe that the speed of
innovation is increasing constantly, and therefore the need to have systemic
policies to encourage innovation is becoming a necessity, a prerequisite for
success.

We admit that we have certain capacities in this area, but we think that if
we partner with you, we'll show unbelievable capacities for change and
growth and management and industry and global market reach, and I think the
combination is very, very powerful.

New industries are created as we speak. As we speak. Since your visit to
Israel, which was only recently, we've learned that Israel has a car
industry. Now, we've never really had a car industry. We only produce
chassis, engines, tires. We tried once but failed, miserably. But we have a
car industry. Our car industry is the autonomous vehicle technology, the
'brains' of the car. And we've just had Intel, that invests heavily in China
but also invests heavily in Israel, invest in one company – one company –
$15 billion to buy it, but also when it bought this company of automotive
technology, it said: Here, you have the keys for the world, for all our
automotive technologies in the world. So Israel is now becoming a center for
autonomous driving in the entire world because of innovation. Because of
innovation. Now, the same thing is happening with digital health. The same
thing is happening in other areas too. I should add that in addition to this
particular company that Intel bought for 15 billion dollars, we have 500
companies that do the same thing. A few years ago we had nothing. These are
like mushrooms after the rain.

We want to marry our technology with China’s capacities. The ability to have
technological exchanges depends on the sustainability of this conference,
and we strongly hope that we can continue the work that you began, Adam, in
the coming years. Secondly, it depends, I believe, on the work of the NDRC
and the Prime Minister's Office in specific areas of technological
cooperation. And third, it depends on the acceleration of the Free Trade
Agreement between China and Israel, which by itself is a platform for
technology exchanges.

Technology is so valuable today that we all can benefit from it. Israel has
benefited a great deal but we understand that we could benefit more to the
extent that we could have China realize its extraordinary goals and
ambitions to build on its extraordinary success. We want to be your
partners.

We think we can be your partners. This forum has shown that we're well on
the right road, and let's continue on it.

I want to thank you again, thank Premier Li and of course President Xi who
is sitting here today. Thank you."