Chinese Premier Li Keqiang chats with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a welcoming ceremony inside the Great Hall of the People on March 20, 2017 in Beijing, China. (Photo : Getty Images)
The CEO of China's largest beverage producer said Israel's tech industry will find a huge market and funding in China in exchange for cutting-edge technology.
Zong Qinghou, chairman of Hangzhou Wahaha Group Co Ltd, said Chinese firms are actively seeking mature technologies in Israel to bring to China to develop high-return businesses.
"Israeli companies are pleased to sell their technologies because their home market is relatively small," Zong said in an interview with China Daily in a report published Wednesday.
He said that Wahaha is seeking robot technologies from Israel for its new factory set to be built in Lin'an in east China's Zhejiang Province.
Since 2011, Wahaha has been involved in the research and development of industrial robots, including those used for packaging, palletizing, and delivery of production materials.
By 2015, Wahaha had 30 industrial robots operating in its own factories and has set its sights for another 100 to go into production, China Daily reported.
According to data from IVC Research Center, Chinese investors spent around $500 million in Israeli startups in 2015 and $1 billion in Israeli venture capital funds in 2016.
China and Israel have made recent inroads towards establishing top-level mechanisms for cooperation between companies from the two countries.
Minister of Science and Technology Wan Gang said on Monday that China and Israel had agreed to deepen cooperation in innovation.
The China-Israel Joint Committee on Innovation Cooperation has played an important role in guiding the innovation development between the two nations, said Wan, adding that Chinese Vice Premier Liu Yandong and Israeli prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will attend the third meeting of the committee on Tuesday in Beijing.
China has been Israel's largest trade partner in Asia and trade between the two nations have bright prospects in the future, he said.
Netanyahu said on Monday that Israel is a "technological global power" that can be "the perfect junior partner" to Chinese companies in sectors such as cyber security, automotive technology, and data.
The Israeli PM went on a three-day visit to China earlier this week, meeting with the heads of China's largest companies including Wahaha's Zong, Jack Ma of Alibaba, Liu Chuanzhi of Lenovo, and Wang Jianlin of Dalian Wanda Group.
