Bilateral Innovation Agreement (BIA)

India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Israel’s Directorate of Defence Research and Development (DDR&D) signed a pact - known as the Bilateral Innovation Agreement (BIA). The agreement is a tangible demonstration of the growing Indo–Israeli technological cooperation.

Key Highlights

• Objective: The agreement will promote innovation and accelerate research and development (R&D) in startups and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) of both countries for the development of dual use technologies.
• Strategy: Under the agreement, startups and industry of both countries will work together to bring out next generation technologies and products.
• Focus Areas: The agreement will facilitate new developments in areas such as drones, robotics, artificial intelligence, quantum technology, photonics, biosensing, brain-machine interface, energy storage, wearable devices and natural language processing.
• Customisation: The products and technologies will be customised to meet unique requirements of both the countries.
• Funding: The development efforts will be jointly funded by DRDO and DDR&D, Israel. The technologies developed under the Bilateral Innovation Agreement will be available to both countries for their domestic applications.

India-Israel Ties: Some Aspects

• Trade Ties: Bilateral trade between the two countries is around $ 5 billion annually. India is Israel's third largest trading partner in Asia and seventh largest globally. In recent years, bilateral trade has seen a boom even in previously less charted dominions of medical machines, communications models, and electronic equipment.
• Defence and Other Ties: Defence trade is around $ 1 billion annually according to various estimates with India being a significant buyer of Israeli defence products. There are extensive ties between both countries in multiple sectors, from business and industry to IT and agriculture.