商业报道:行情看好的以色列经济（在线收听）

What do song lyrics, chickens, and high-tech have in common? They are all indicators of a recovering Israeli economy, one of the few economies to have survived the global recession relatively unscathed, some at the recent high-tech conference in Tel Aviv allowed themselves some optimism.

Most people in Israel didn't invest in the, all the investment bubbles outside Israel, but they got into this bubble burst.

Seven months ago, this chicken factory in the Galilee lay idle. Employees thought their jobs were gone. The managers were nowhere to be seen. Today the machines are back in action and the chickens are back on the supermarket shelves. In a report released Sunday, the Bank of Israel said the economy has recovered faster than expected. The local currency the shekel is strong. GDP next year is expected to grow by 2.5 per cent. And in August, the Bank of Israel became the first leading central bank to raise interest rates to head off inflation amid signs of an economic recovery.

It isn't over yet. We still have a very high unemployment. We don't absolutely know what's gonna happen in the rest of the world. So we'd better not be declaring victory too soon. We made terrific progress. We've got to keep it up.

This man is one of Israel's success stories. Rani Cohen has taken the concept of media player to another level, adding lyrics to the songs you listen to, and the chance to connect to others listening to the same song.

We are making the social media player social.

Cohen received funding in November 2007. And he knows he launched his company just in time.

Many very good ideas just couldn't make it in the last six months. While before venture capitalists, when they saw a good idea and a good team, they would finance it. Now they are expecting them to reach to the point where there is a market adoption.

Cohen also attributes Israel's better business survival rate to an entrepreneurial spirit.

Glossary

head off: to prevent sth from happening, esp sth bad

market adoption: 市场应用