YEREVAN, DECEMBER 13, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian-Israeli public forum has summed up the results of its activities of 2017, Alexander Tsinker, a former lawmaker of the Israeli parliament and the co-chair of the forum told ARMENPRESS. Tsinker was recently in Armenia to discuss the 2018 programs of the forum with Lt. General Hayk Kotanjyan, co-chair of the forum from the Armenian side.

Baruch Ben Neriah, the first Ambassador to Armenia and Georgia, Professor of the Jewish University of Jerusalem also participated in the discussions.

“This year we held the 2nd and 3rd sessions of the forum in Israel, then in Armenia. Israel’s minister of regional cooperation Tzachi Hanegbi visited Armenia. During his visit the 2017-2020 culture, education, science, youth and sports cooperation program was confirmed. The year was also marked with the visits of Armenian and Israeli journalists to Israel and Armenia. And this is indeed a very important direction. Armenian FM Edward Nalbandian’s visit to Israel is also noteworthy, at the invitation of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The year can be considered as successful. I also find the work of the leaders of parliamentary friendship groups to be important in terms of developing relations”, Tsinker said.

Tsinker said they have pointed out three directions as basics for 2018 work.

The first direction is agricultural business. “More than 40% of the workforce is centralized in agriculture in Armenia, and the production output is of the same volume as the output of the 2% workforce of Israel. Understandably the introduction of leading Israeli technologies will contribute to increasing quality of production and competitiveness”, Tsinker said.

“Next is the IT sector, where Israel has global leading positions, however Armenian specialists are also famous in this sector with their projects. When the Israeli delegation visited Armenia, they visited several companies and saw the level of training of these specialists. The next step must be the implementation of joint projects. I think cooperation in this sector will be productive”, he said.

A joint information platform is also planned to be created in terms of tourism, among others.