An Israeli negotiating team led by Ohad Cohen, director of international trade at the Ministry of Economy and Industry, has completed the first round of free trade talks with the Kingdom of Bahrain in Manama.

The parties discussed issues of tax regulation, standardization, trade in goods and services, public procurement, online commerce, and copyright.

In addition to representatives of the Ministry of Economy, the delegation included officials from the Ministries of Finance, Foreign Affairs, Agriculture and Justice.

The parties noted significant progress in the negotiations, the next round of which will be held in December 2022 in Israel.

In 2021, the trade turnover with Bahrain was only $7.3 million.

Israel has one of the world’s largest sets of free trade agreements. At the moment, Israel has free trade agreements with 45 countries of the world – 27 EU countries, the UK, EFTA countries (Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Liechtenstein), Turkey, Mexico, Canada, the USA, the MERCOSUR bloc (Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay), Colombia, Panama, Ukraine, South Korea. The signed agreement with the UAE has been ratified by the second party and is in the process of ratification in Israel. An agreement with Guatemala has been signed and is awaiting ratification.

Negotiations are underway to expand the agreement with Ukraine and its extension to the service sector, as well as negotiations to expand the agreement with the UK. Negotiations are also underway on free trade with the EAEU (Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia), China, Chile, Georgia. In 2021, the authorities of India and Vietnam announced their intention to complete negotiations and sign an agreement with Israel in 2022, while the Australian authorities announced the acceleration of negotiations with Israel. Negotiations are underway on free trade with Bahrain.

With Egypt and Jordan, Israel has agreements on special industrial zones, goods from which are shipped duty-free to the United States.