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The Minister of Industry, Trade and Labor, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, has asked his party colleague Defense Minister Ehud Barak to reconsider the decision to purchase official IDF emblems from China, and to buy "blue-and-white" – i.e., from Israeli companies – instead.

Arutz Sheva reported earlier this week that the Defense Ministry had chosen a Chinese manufacturer to produce various military insigia, such as the stripes marking officers’ ranks, unit pins and the like. The contract is for three years. Noam Peleg, whose Maayan Metals plant lost out because his price was higher than the Chinese offer, says the decision will cost Israel in the long run.

Maayan Metals is located in Kibbutz Maayan Baruch, north of Kiryat Shmonah in the Galilee Panhandle.

The regulations state that a bid from the Israeli periphery must be accepted over any other bid, unless the latter is 15%, or more, lower. In this case, the Chinese bid was 16.5% lower. Peleg says, “It was a difference of only 200,000 shekels – money which the State of Israel will now have to pay in unemployment for the workers that I will now have to fire. The employment situation here is not good as it was…”

“In addition, our product is of higher quality than the Chinese,” Peleg said, “yet this was not taken into account even for 1% of the total value of the deal.”

Preferring foreigners

“The decision not to give us the contract also goes against government policy,” Peleg said, “which is to give preference to Israeli plants. It has even established a committee to seek out Israeli manufacturers for the purpose – yet here, they knew about us, yet they sent the work out to a different country.”

Peleg told Arutz Sheva that he once put in a bid for army symbols for another country, “but I was told that though my work is better and the price is lower than in their own country, they don’t buy their military symbols from other countries. Why shouldn’t we have that policy?”

As mentioned, Minister Ben-Eliezer has asked Minister Barak to reconsider the decision. In 2001-2002, Ben-Eliezer headed the Labor Party that Barak now heads.

In a related item, Public Security Minister recently asked the Israel Prison Service to freeze a tender for prison service uniforms, in order to make it easier for Israeli firms to participate.