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Jewish investors from South Africa and the US are investing in Israel these days. A group of investors from South Africa decided to acquire office buildings in Tel Aviv and in the Ramat Hahayal industrial zone at an investment of more than $20 million. One of the American investors has acquired commercial properties in the American City project in Rehovot, which is currently under construction. According to the sales managers, the investors believe the best time to purchase property in Israel is during a recession. They maintain that the yields markets in the US and England has become more expensive today, and the return of investors to operations in Israel is now being felt.
The Israeli start-up company Beyond Security Ltd., which specializes in examining security in communications networks, recently detected a security information breach in Microsoft's Outlook Express mail application program - which allows an outside person to take control of the computer. Last weekend, Microsoft published an announcement on this matter, and referred users to a site from which they can download a patch that corrects the problem. The director-general of the Israeli company said that Microsoft reacted quickly. "They know us," he said, "because in the past we have also discovered security breaches in Microsoft products. They asked us not to publicize it until they put up the patch files that correct the problem.
One of the largest cellular communications companies in the world, the Spanish company Telephonica, has chosen the Israeli company Comverse as its global technological partner to provide message solutions. The global agreement makes it possible for operators to use Comverse's message solutions, which combine voice boxes, voice dialing, integrated messages, and more. The Spanish company has already changed some of its voice boxes with Comverse voice boxes, which are already serving more than 4 million of the company's 18 million subscribers. According to the agreement, Comverse's service framework will be supplied to announcement services throughout the world. Telephonica will thus be able to provide uniform services to its clients with throughout the world. Comverse trades on the NASDAQ stock exchange at a market value of $1.3 million.
The Israeli company Gilat Satellite Networks, which produces very small satellite aperture terminals (VSAT) for satellite data delivery and voice communications won a contract for a $20 million project with Brazil's Ministry of Communications. Gilat will supply 3,500 terminals for Internet to 2,700 municipal areas in Brazil, and is expected to complete delivery within less than a year. This is Gilat's second contract in South America. The company recently won a $17 million tender from the government of Colombia to install 2800 telephone and Internet lines in distant mountainous regions of the country.
The Central Bureau of Statistics this week publicized its early assessments of the state of the economy in 2002, which includes a number of negative economic data. According to these data, there will be a drop of 0.9 percent in the gross domestic product (GDP), a drop of 5 percent in exports, and a drop of 2.9 percent in GDP per capita (a figure reflecting the standard of living). The government's original growth target for 2002 was 4 percent, and the gap between this target and the anticipated growth of minus 0.9 percent is due to the fact that production was some NIS 25 billion less than the forecast. The 2002 state budget was based on the higher growth estimate, but the figure was lowered several times during the course of the year, resulting in budget cuts.
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