At the ceremony of the entry of the company “ADGD” Ltd. into the port of Haifa – which was recently privatized – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that this day is a “holiday for the city of Haifa, a holiday for the State of Israel, a holiday for India, a holiday for our relations with India and a holiday for the economy of the region and the economy of the world.”
“Our connection to the sea, and the fact that the majority of international trade is carried out by sea, require us to be in the first row of the world’s ports,’ said Netanyahu. “After all, almost everything goes by sea, from raw materials to finished products, so when the goods are stuck outside the port – everything becomes more expensive: transportation rates, insurance, waiting, maintenance, storage. The price goes up and the Israeli consumer pays. On the other hand, when there is competition – there is efficiency. The containers are unloaded quickly, the supply chain is shortened, and the prices drop. So this is the vision, and this is the execution, and even if it took us 20 years of hard work – how to say, with the work of ants – it was worth it, and now we are reaping the fruits. “
Netanyahu has made privatization and deregulation central components of his domestic agenda since he first served as prime minister in the 1990s. In fact, his Likud Part under Prime Minister Menachem Begin began this process to end socialist systems in Israel back in the 1970s, even before Margaret Thatcher began to do the same in England.
