Following the recent announcement by Carrier Corporation unit Tadiran Appliances that it is closing its air conditioning factory in Afula and moving production to China, Knesset Finance Committee chairman MK Moshe Gafni (United Torah Judaism) will convene a committee meeting next week to discuss the loss of Israeli manufacturing operations to locations abroad. According to a report in Israeli financial news source Globes, Gafni is expected to call on the Committee and government to take measures to encourage manufacturers to keep production in Israel, and to ask the government to order ministries, starting with the Ministry of Defense, to buy Israeli products.

Israeli government tenders do not require the purchase of domestic products. A bill passed in the previous Knesset only mandated preference to domestic products in government tenders. "The country is closing its eyes to the departure of Israeli factories, which fire hundreds of employees, and weaken the Israeli economy. We must do something to stop this,” Gafni said.