Tag Archives: 3) Swiss Markets and News

SWISS International Air Lines has been forced to reduce flights to the US and other parts of the world. (© Keystone / Gaetan Bally) A United States ban on travellers from Europe has been condemned as “incomprehensible” by leading Swiss manufacturing association, Swissmem. The Swiss-American Chamber of Commerce has also weighed in, saying firms would seriously suffer if borders remain closed for longer than a month. The US is Switzerland’s second-largest trade...

© Ryzhov Sergey | Dreamstime.com One of the biggest challenges during the coronavirus outbreak will be ensuring there are enough qualified staff and equipment to keep the worst affected patients alive. Thierry Fumeaux, head of the Swiss Society of Intensive Medicine, told RTS there are 82 intensive care units (ICU) across Switzerland. These have a combined 850 places, of which 750 are equipped with breathing equipment. It is not clear how many of these places are...

Today, according to the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH), there were 815 confirmed cases in Switzerland. There are obvious challenges to this figure. Possibly the most important is the time lag between infection and a confirmed case. On average, there are 5.1 days between catching the virus and the onset of symptoms. If you look at the chart above from a WHO report on COVID-19 in China, which shows new coronavirus cases from 8 December until 20 February for...

The Panama Papers leaked by Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca revealed that 1,339 Swiss lawyers, financial advisers and other middlemen had set up more than 38,000 offshore entities over the last 40 years.  (Keystone / Alejandro Bolivar) The Swiss government faces resistance to efforts to tighten anti-money laundering rules that close loopholes for lawyers who act as “advisors” in setting up offshore financial structures. Anti-corruption expert Mark Pieth writes...

Employees at the greatest risk are those who don’t have the luxury to work from home. (Keystone / Matteo Bazzi) Our regular analysis of what the biggest global companies in Switzerland are up to. This week: responsible business in an epidemic, child labour on coffee farms, and Responsible Business debate. What has made multinational companies in Switzerland so successful is exactly what is making them particularly vulnerable in a global epidemic. In the Financial...

Binningen – source: Wikipedia The coronavirus has claimed its fourth victim in Switzerland. A 54 year old man died yesterday in Binningen hospital in the canton of Basel-Landschaft, according to the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH). The man attended an evangelical church gathering of 2,000 people held between 17 and 24 February 2020 in the French city of Mulhouse. Several other cases of infection have been linked to the same gathering. The man, who had been in...

Switzerland’s government and health officials presented a coronavirus update yesterday. Key elements of the presentation are set out below. [embedded content]The full coronavirus press update can be viewed above in German. Closing borders is now pointless Patrick Mathys, who is leading the coronavirus response at the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH), said epidemiologically that closing the borders would achieve nothing and would not slow the spread of the...

Fears over coronavirus could boost online shopping this year. (© Keystone / Gaetan Bally) Swiss shoppers spent more than CHF10 billion ($11 billion) online last year, an increase of 8.4% from 2018, according to a study of retail habits. Electronics and fashion goods dominated orders. Food accounted for just 2.8% of the total goods consumed (up from 1.8% in 2018), but the report’s authors expect orders to increase this year with people reluctant to go to supermarkets...

Some reports claim that planes have been flying without passengers in order to maintain landing slots. (Keystone / Laurent Gillieron) With passenger numbers down due to Covid-19, some airlines want authorities to loosen rules maintain that airport landing slots are lost unless fully used. “Use it or lose it”: regulations state that when an airline is allocated a landing slot, it must use it at least 80% of the time planned, or else risk being stripped of it the...

A pedestrian walks along an empty street in Haro, northern Spain, on March 9, 2020 (Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved) Swiss pharma giant Roche said on Tuesday it would send all of its 1,200 Spanish employees home starting from Wednesday to work remotely amid the coronavirus outbreak. “The company will maintain its normal activity and will guarantee, as until now, the supply of medicines to hospitals,” Roche said in a statement. The company...