Columbia International Affairs Online: Working Papers

CIAO DATE: 04/2010

Israel's leading multinationals continue to expand domestically and abroad despite the crisis

March 2010

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment

Abstract

The third annual survey of Israeli multinational enterprises (MNEs) is being released today. It was conducted by a joint team composed of the Manufacturers Association of Israel, Tel Aviv University, Hebrew University, and the Vale-Columbia Center on Sustainable International Investment (VCC), a joint undertaking of the Columbia Law School and The Earth Institute at Columbia University in New York. The survey is part of a long-term, multi-country study of the rapid global expansion of multinational enterprises (MNEs) from emerging markets. The results released today cover the year 2008. In 2008, Israel's top 25 MNEs – ranked by their foreign assets – had over USD 18 billion in foreign assets (table 1), about USD 40 billion in foreign sales (including exports), and employed nearly 93,000 persons abroad. Five firms: Israel Corporation, Elco Holdings, Teva, Amdocs and Ormat together accounted for threequarters of the total foreign assets of the top 25.