Udi Adam
Udi AdamYonatan Sindel, Flash 90

The Defense Ministry's Defense Export Control Agency (DECA) held its annual conference on Monday.

Speaking at the conference were Defense Ministry Director General Major General (Reserves) Udi Adam, senior members of the defense establishment, and hundreds of members from the defense industries.

"The reform of defense exports control is already here and it's a real message for defense exporters. During the work [on the reforms], we took quite a few calculated risks. This was with the goal of maintaining the balance between effective controls on increasing exports and strengthening of economy and technology," Adam said.

Over the past two years, the Ministry of Defense has been leading a comprehensive reform of defense export controls, at the center of which is the largest and most significant package of concessions for exporters since the establishment of the agency 11 years ago.

In her speech at the conference, DECA Director Racheli Chen revealed key points of the reform.

"After we approved the revision of the Defense Export Control Regulations in the Knesset, and awarded exemptions from the need for some export licenses," she explained. "[This] already reduces the need to obtain export licenses for unclassified products."

"In addition, we added an exemption for marketing licenses for some counterterrorism courses, such as personnel security, airport and public transportation security, security training, and police courses. In the coming months, we will commence the most important stage of the reform, which will greatly reduce the need to obtain marketing licenses for a wide range of products."

The second phase of the reform involves exempting various products, reducing the list of excluded products, increasing the number of countries which do not require a license to market unclassified products, substantially updating the combat equipment order, and enabling exporters to do most of the initial marketing operations without a license.

Various other exemptions have already come into effect, including an exemption from an expert license for service and repairs for up to ten years. There is also an online registration list of defense exporters.

"Eleven years after the establishment and consolidation of the Defense Export Controls Agency- the time has come to take significant steps, together with our partners at the Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee," Chen said.

"By the end of this process, we will have completed a deep and significant reform which will restructure the supervision of defense exports within the State of Israel, allowing defense exporters to operate in a single-state licensing process for unclassified items to approved countries.

"The reform will reduce by the thousands the number of licenses each year, reduce bureaucracy and allow DECA to focus on supervising the substantive issues and improve its service to exporters."