"Executive pay is a very hot topic, but why has it risen? The newspapers. We are mandated to disclose the salaries. When a new employee comes, he says that a colleague earns such and such, and I won't earn less… the reports causes salaries to rise," said Alrov (Israel) Ltd. (TASE: ALRO) chairman Alfred Akirov at the annual Ernst & Young Israel - Kost Forer Gabbay & Kasierer real estate conference today.
"There's no connection between capital and government. It's a fact that capital is leaving Israel," added Akirov. "It's a fact that Makhteshim Agan Industries Ltd. (TASE: MAIN) has acquired an American company. This is a disaster for the Israeli economy.
"The government should encourage investment in Israel. Government encouragement of business will boost tax revenues. Even Clinton helps Boeing sell planes, and the President of France does the same for Airbus. All I'm asking for is the publication of a tender for hotels. This could create 40,000 jobs, but no hotel in Tel Aviv has been built in decades."
Akirov continued, "I work abroad, and there, government helps me develop my business. We must reach the same conclusion; help capital develop the country. In the end, the tycoons, when they reach 80 years old, they bring the money back to Israel, just like the late Ted Arison, Morriss Kahn, and Sami Ofer with his donation to Ichilov Hospital. That's how it is in the US, too.
"We must encourage investment in Israel, and bring investors from the world and stop the drivel about the capital-government nexus. It's a newspaper-government nexus, and the newspapers are ultimately in the hands of two or three families."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on June 28, 2010
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2010