Mr Lynn took part in a seminar which the Israeli ambassador said was “an outstanding opportunity to present the Israeli economy to the business sector in Norway”

The top five countries are Singapore, the Netherlands, Germany, and Sweden. Despite Israel's fairly high global ranking, it is ranked at the bottom of industrialized countries

Since the report doesn't mention exactly why Israel's relative rank eroded, it is believed that the low ranking was due to inefficient government bureaucracy and onerous taxation

The CBS noted that the Israeli R&D figure topped all members of the OECD where the top per capita spender on R&D was Sweden with 3.7%

A study stresses Haifa's strategic location as the gateway to the Galilee and recommends taking measures to attract cruise ships and to create special packages for the business sector

Israel is ranked in 20th place for economic strength. It has climbed 20 places from 45th to 25th in the ratings for international investment

The rankings are drawn from a combination of publicly available hard data and the results of the Executive Opinion Survey

According to“Euromoney”, Israel scored in total 68.2 points, out of the maximum 100, in the 2006 rankings. Israel is down two places