A binational foundation, designed to promote joint industrial research and development between the United States and Israel was established here yesterday at a formal ceremony between Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs C. Fred Bergsten and Israeli Ambassador Simcha Dinitz.
The move to establish the Binational Industrial Research and Development Foundation, followed President Carter’s signing into law Congressional legislation which stipulated that Israel and the U.S. would each contribute $30 million to create an endowment to promote activities of mutual interest and benefit to both countries.
An agreement for the project was signed in Jerusalem March 3, 1976. The Joint Israel-American Committee for Investment and Trade, whose objective is to foster economic ties, initiated the project which is expected to provide direct mutual economic gains such as the development and participation in new external markets and increase the flow of materials and services between the two countries. According to a spokesman for the Government of Israel Investment Authority, which is headquartered in New York, the Foundation “is the first of its kind established between the United States and another country.”
For a project to be supported by the Foundation it must show promise of tangible direct benefits to the national economies of both countries, according to a statement issued by the U.S. Treasury Department. The Foundation will be governed by a board consisting of three officials of each government.
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