New Delhi: India and Israel are expanding bilateral ties beyond defence space to other sectors like agriculture, healthcare and technology supply, an official said today.

Stating that the entire spectrum of defence relationship with Israel is undergoing a change, Lt Gen Subrata Saha (Retd), Director General, Society of Indian Defence Manufacturers (SIDM), said the two countries are striving to move towards a relationship of strategic reliance, which is not necessarily only hinging on supply of arms.

"We are moving away from just arms supplier relationship with Israel to much wider scope of relationship such as depending on them for technology supplying and joint ventures," Saha told reporters here.

He was speaking at a panel discussion on Building a transformational partnership between India and Israel.

India Israel CEOs Forum Member Shiv Khemka said, out of the 8 million population of Israel, only 2 million people are part of the productive economy who have created the economic miracle of USD 390 billion and therefore its pertinent to utilise their human capital for India's growth.

"It is enlightening to see how such a small nation has created such huge commercial wealth," Khemka, who is also Member of CII International Council and Vice Chairman of SUN Group, said.

He further said India has tremendous opportunities to be a part of Israels innovation as they have a very small market to showcase their work and therefore the business ideas of Israeli companies in the field of agriculture and healthcare, among others using AI, big data can be scaled in India.