The ministers will head top-level delegations comprising senior ministry officials, experts, trainees and businessmen from the US, Australia, Ecuador, Hungary, Turkey, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, the Philippines, Chile, the Czech Republic, Republic of Korea, Sweden, Jordan, Egypt, Romania, as well as from several western European, far-eastern and south-east Asian countries. The director general of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) expressed his interest in attending the exhibition, scheduled to be the largest and most comprehensive agricultural exhibition ever held in Israel.

Israel's minister of agriculture, Shalom Simhon, said that the Israeli government considers the forthcoming exhibition as a national event and is taking all the necessary steps 'to ensure the success of the exhibition.' During his visit to Romania at the end of August, Simhon said a number of 'breakthrough innovations in irrigation technologies and the introduction of several new varieties of fruits and vegetables [would] be shown for the first time during Agritech '03'.

Simhon, and his Romanian colleague minister Ilie Sarbu, announced a plan by which Israel will set up a number of demonstration farms and agro-industrial centres in Romania, aimed at modernising Romania's agricultural production infrastructure. A joint committee headed by the director generals of both ministries and comprising experts from both countries, will select sites throughout Romania in which the demonstration farms will be established.

Topics