“Guangdong always fascinates me with being the most populous province in China and the number one in its GDP development. The reason that I’m here is to see if we can further develop our economic, academic and cultural ties,” said Irit Ben-Abba Vitale, Israeli Ambassador to China, in a recent interview with GDToday.
In late February, Vitale visited south China’s Guangdong province for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak in 2020. She went to Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Shantou to tap into the potential of Israeli-Guangdong cooperation.
Vitale told GDToday that her focus is on the fields of alternative energy, health technology, automobile manufacturing, and agriculture, saying, “We went to see an electric car manufacturer in Guangzhou that we’re interested to export to Israel. China is a leader today in electric cars manufacturing, and Israel has technologies that are very relevant to the car industries.”
Vitale furthered they are also trying to find ways of collaborating with local companies in energy storage and production of renewable energy such as hydrogen.
In terms of bilateral collaboration in the field of bio-technology, Vitale said, “There’s a joint Israeli-Guangdong government fund which was established in 2022 at the Guangzhou International Bio Island. It finances collaboration in medical technologies between Israel and China. This is very unique to Guangdong province.”
Looking back to the 30-year development of Chinese-Israeli ties, Vitale noted that the academic cooperation between the two sides is prominent. “Some of our universities have signed MoUs (Memorandum of Understanding) and agreements with various universities across China. We’ve also established the only Israeli-Chinese cooperative university in Guangdong, the Guangdong Technion - Israel Institute of Technology (GTIIT), focusing on science and technology.”
“It was very eminent that both sides are eager to continue with the good bilateral relations. We are expecting to see a growing number of business people going from China to Israel and from Israel to China,” Vitale noted.
Reporter | Lydia Liu, Steven
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