General Electric VP sees more opportunities in Israel
02/21/2012 22:29
“I understand the optimism people have here,” GE VP says of Israel. “It’s very much an energetic, can-do society.”
General Electric will continue to invest in Israeli health care and cleantech
and search for new opportunities in software and other areas, visiting senior
vice president and chief marketing officer Beth Comstock said
Tuesday.
Israel is the best country for business innovation, according to
GE internal research, and its business executives are among the most optimistic
in the world, she told The Jerusalem Post in a telephone interview.
“I
understand the optimism people have here,” Comstock said. “It’s very much an
energetic, can-do society.”
Referring to GE’s recent announcement that it
will invest in Israeli start-up Check-Cap, a developer of an ingestible imaging
capsule that may help detect colorectal cancer, she said, “We know Israel as a
leader for health-care innovation.”
Cleantech would continue to attract
interest, Comstock said, citing GE’s investment in Solar Edge, which makes
systems that boost solar panels’ electricity production.
GE is the
world’s 16thlargest company, with annual revenues of $151.63 billion, according
to Fortune’s Global 500. The US-based conglomerate operates nine R&D
centers in Israel, including the recently opened multidisciplinary center in
Haifa, which conducts research on medical devices, water and clean energy.