Tag Archives: 3.) Investec

Existing Swiss Air Force F-18 – © Andrew David Periam | Dreamstime.com Before Christmas, Switzerland’s parliament approved the purchase of a new fleet of fighter jets costing CHF 6 billion, according to RTS. The plan, which aims to defend Swiss airspace beyond 2030, has now been approved by both Switzerland’s upper and lower houses. Any contract to supply the aircraft will require a foreign supplier to invest in related industries in Switzerland. Some have described...

Every year, Switzerland sets quotas for the number of work visas it issues to citizens outside the EU and EFTA. This week the government announced it would maintain the quota of 8,500 permits that was in place in 2018. In addition, it confirmed an earlier deal it struck with the UK to issue up to 3,500 work visas to British citizens in the event of a no-deal Brexit. The 8,500 quota is made up of 4,500 B-permits for stays over one year, and 4,000 short-term L-permits...

© Swisshippo | Dreamstime.com Recently published statistics suggest most Swiss prefer home grown animal products. Three quarters (75%) of those surveyed said they preferred Swiss eggs and more than half preferred Swiss meat (51%) and dairy products (59%). Reasons for preferring local animal products were to support local farmers (nearly 25%), low food miles (15%) and product quality (15%). 40% considered Swiss agriculture to be trustworthy and 33% thought it was...

Extinction Rebellion Switzerland’s Facebook cover photo In September 2019, groups of people belonging to the group Extinction Rebellion blocked two road bridges in Lausanne. Local police cleared the bridges by removing, in some cases carrying, protesters away. On 7 November 2019, 117 of the people involved in the bridge protests were convicted and fined for breaking Switzerland’s penal code, according to RTS. One person was convicted of violence and the rest of...

© Oleksandr Lutsenko | Dreamstime.com After a legal analyis the government of the canton of Geneva has decided that drivers of the ride hailing service are employees rather than independent contractors, effectively banning Uber from operating under its current model. In an interview with RTS, Mauro Poggia, a lawyer and Geneva state councillor, said that Uber is a transport company and as such must employ its drivers. Employees are treated differently to contractors....

© Andrey Metelev | Dreamstime.com The Federal Council, Switzerland’s executive, has confirmed a decision made by parliament to raise the minimum speed of broadband internet connections in Switzerland. From 1 January 2020, the minimum download speed specified in Switzerland’s universal service agreement with Swisscom will rise from 3 to 10 megabits per second (Mbits/s) and the minimum upload speed will rise from 0.3 to 1 Mbit/s. The change aims to boost social and...

© Shawn Hempel | Dreamstime.com A commission of the Council of States, Switzerland’s upper house, is in favour of new rules to protect whistleblowers. The proposed rules, which would help to protect those who expose secretive information or activity that is deemed illegal or unethical, were supported by 6 commission votes to 2 with 4 abstentions. The proposal, which would be incorporated into employment law, would follow the cascade principle put forward by the...

Swiss National Bank – © J0hnb0y | Dreamstime.com The Swiss National Bank (SNB), Switzerland’s central bank, has earned CHF 388 million from negative interest rates since introducing them in 2014 to tame the rising strength of the Swiss Franc, according to the newspaper SonntagsBlick. On 15 January 2015, the SNB announced that it was abandoning its policy of maintaining an exchange rate cap of 1.20 francs to 1.00 euro. At the same time it increased negative interest...

© Ppvector | Dreamstime.com Every quarter UBS, a bank, publishes its real estate bubble index, a report that covers real estate prices in 24 cities around the world. In the third quarter of 2019, Munich was listed as the most overvalued housing market in the world. Bubble risk was highest in Munich, Toronto, Hong Kong and Amsterdam. Frankfurt, Vancouver and Paris. London moved out of bubble risk territory while Paris and Frankfurt entered the risk zone for the first...

Solar Impulse 2 – an example of Swiss innovation – © Ryan Fletcher | Dreamstime.com Switzerland made the the top 5, after dropping from 4th to 5th, in this year’s World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Competitiveness Index. Switzerland’s decline was largely due to a down weighting of a factor where it is strong, according to WEF’s Saadia Zahidi. The Global Competitive Index measures performance in 114 areas that influence a nation’s productivity. Productivity, a measure...