A 2009 demonstration in London calling for a boycott of Israel. Foreign investment in Israeli assets has tripled since the launch of the BDS movement in 2005. Photo: Claudia Gabriela Marques Vieira via Wikimedia Commons.

JNS.org – Foreign investment in Israeli assets has tripled since the launch of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement in 2005, demonstrating that BDS has not significantly harmed the Israeli economy, according to new data published by Bloomberg News.

“We don’t have a problem with foreign investment in Israel—on the contrary,” said Yoel Naveh, chief economist at Israel’s Finance Ministry.

In 2015, Israel’s industrial high-tech exports grew 13 percent from the previous year. Israeli start-ups raised $3.76 billion last year from non-Israeli investors, according to the IVC Research Center. This year, Israel’s economic growth is projected to reach 2.8 percent, higher than the growth rates in both the U.S. and the European Union.

Although some European pension funds have blacklisted Israeli banks, Bloomberg conducted a survey of nine Israeli companies that have experienced either steady or increased non-Israeli holdings during the last three years. According to Bloomberg, the majority of fund managers who own shares in those companies either did not want to speak about the influence of BDS on their decisions or wanted to remain anonymous.