Tag Archives: 3.) Swiss Business and Economy

British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, at a farm in Wales in 2019, where he was canvassing support for his post-Brexit farming policy. Afp Or Licensors Britain argues that Brexit will make British agriculture greener. SWI Swissinfo.ch looks at how successful EU agricultural policies have been, and how they compare with Switzerland’s approach. One of the arguments Brexiters pushed forward was that the United Kingdom would be greener after Brexit. They argued hefty...

Like Switzerland, Iceland – whose leaders are pictured here with German Chancellor Angela Merkel – is not a member of the European Union and has no current plans for a future membership. Keystone / Str With Brexit done, Switzerland is hoping it can restart negotiations on its framework agreement with the European Union. The experience of other non-member states offers some valuable lessons on how it can engage with Brussels, though no blueprint exists. SWI...

The Johnson & Johnson campus in Zug © Keystone / Urs Flueeler American pharma group Johnson & Johnson (J&J) is to transfer four of its canton Neuchâtel-based subsidiaries to other locations – including abroad. The move is expected to result in the loss of up to 320 jobs by mid-2023. The company wants to move the production lines for its two of its subsidiaries in Neuchâtel, western Switzerland, to Puerto Rico and Mexico. The inspection and storage...

Britain is keen to maintain the City of London’s attractiveness as a global financial centre Keystone / Facundo Arrizabalaga Britain and Switzerland will press on with plans to strike a trade deal for their vast financial services industries, UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak said on Wednesday ahead of talks with his Swiss counterpart. The Treasury said the virtual discussions with Swiss Finance Minister Ueli Maurer would focus on the goal of “a...

Bruno Manser talking about the plight of the Penan in 1994 Keystone / Str The diaries of Bruno Manser, a Swiss environmental and human rights activist, have been donated to the Museum der Kulturen in Basel. The ethnologist became known far beyond the borders of Basel for his passionate but also perilous commitment to the Penan people of Borneo and the threatened tropical forests they called home. Manser went missing in 2000 and was officially declared dead in 2005....

Funding continued to flow into start-ups last year, but was spread out more thinly than 2019. © Keystone / Christian Beutler More than CHF2 billion of venture capital flowed into young Swiss companies for the second year in a row, a sustained rate of funding that defied the economic destruction wreaked by the pandemic last year. Investors poured more money into fledging cleantech and biotech projects in 2020 at the expense of ICT and particularly fintech companies....

A nurse administers the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine on the opening day of the new vaccination centre at the Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV) on January 11, 2021. Keystone / Laurent Gillieron The Swiss Covid-19 vaccination campaign is up and running with two approved vaccines available to accelerate the fight against the virus, and others set to follow. How do the vaccine technologies work and compare, and can people choose which one they get? So far, there...

M&A activity for the year as a whole was most intense in the TMT (technology, media and telecommunications) sector Keystone / Obs/caritas Schweiz / Caritas Su - Click to enlarge The coronavirus pandemic left its mark on mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in Switzerland last year. The volume of transactions halved, and the number of deals was also down. Overall, the number of transactions with Swiss participation fell from 402 to 363. At $63.1 billion (CHF56...

Looking for answers at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2018. Keystone / Laurent Gillieron The World Economic Forum should put global leaders in the audience to listen to social workers, virologists and reporters, argues Simon Kuper. We don’t know yet what will happen in 2021, because the World Economic Forum’s meeting in Davos has been called off. Normally at this time of year, political and business leaders gather in the Swiss ski resort to reveal the future....

Boris Collardi accepts the rebuke Keystone / Steffen Schmidt Former Julius Bär CEO Boris Collardi has had his knuckles rapped by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) following an investigation into money laundering. Collardi, who is now a partner at Geneva-based bank Pictet, says he has accepted the reprimand, which is related to the FINMA investigation into alleged corruption, particularly in connection with the Venezuelan state oil company...