Tag Archives: 3) Swiss Markets and News

The high price of drugs in Switzerland has been partially blamed for driving up medical insurance costs. (© Keystone / Gaetan Bally) The cost of health insurance in Switzerland is expected to rise 3% both this year and next, warns the umbrella group for health insurers, Santésuisse. This is way above the forecast rise in consumer goods prices of 0.9% for 2019. On Monday, Santésuisseexternal link outlined the main...

© RESTAURANT DE L’HÔTEL DE VILLE A ranking by Elite Traveler placed the restaurant Hôtel de Ville de Crissier first in a list of the world’s 100 best restaurants, eight places higher than last year. The ranking is based on the votes of readers of the magazine, which is distributed to private jet companies around the world. Franck Giovannini, the restaurant’s chef, follows a long line of award winning chefs at the...

The Swiss government has set a budget of CHF6 billion ($6 billion) for new jets to replace its ageing fleet and has been evaluating different planes at the Swiss army airbase, in Payerne, including the Lockheed Martin F-35A fighter jet Saab’s Gripen E fighter jet will not participate in tests this month in Switzerland, the Swedish company said on Thursday. This follows a recommendation by the Swiss defence procurement...

SECO warned that the flagging global economy was slowing Swiss trade abroad: The State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) is expecting the Swiss economy to grow by +1.2% in 2019, it said on Thursday. It revised its economic forecast upwards slightly from +1.1% in March, following 0.6% growth in the first quarter thanks to vigorous domestic demand. In a statement on Thursdayexternal link, SECO warned that the...

© Nikittta | Dreamstime.com - Click to enlarge The Swiss Hotel Association recorded a 0.7% increase in overnight stays during the 2018/2019 winter season. From November to April, 16.7 million overnight stays were recorded in Switzerland, 8.8 million by foreign visitors and 7.9 million by Swiss travelers. The increase was highest among foreign visitors. Nights spent by foreign visitors rose 1% to 8.8 million nights. The...

© Georgejmclittle | Dreamstime.com The National Council, Switzerland’s parliament, rejected a motion to force Swiss mobile phone operators to remove EU roaming charges. 99 voted against, 78 for and 14 abstained, according to the newspaper 20 Minutes. In 2017, the European Union (EU) forced EU operators to stop charging their customers extra for calls made outside their home country but within the EU. This left Swiss...

Ten currencies, including the Japanese yen, were traded in the banks’ foreign exchange spot markets. (Keystone) The Swiss Competition Commission (COMCO) has fined five international banks for their involvement in the formation of cartels that manipulated the foreign exchange market. COMCO fined Barclays, Citigroup, JPMorgan, the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and the MUFG Bank a total of CHF90 million ($90.6 million) for...

A small charge on single-use plastic bags has cut their use by 86% in two years, say food retailers. (Keystone) Consumption of single-use plastic bags in some 30 Swiss food retailers has dropped 86% since they introduced a small charge in 2016. The charge of CHF0.05 (an American nickel) per bag was introduced voluntarily under a sectoral agreement in response to a parliamentary move that would have banned single-use...

(Ti-press) The number of packages processed by the Swiss Postexternal link office’s three parcel centres has been rising steadily since they opened 20 years ago. During that time, the centres in Härkingen, Daillens and Frauenfeld have handled more than 3.1 billion packages. On average, 800,000 parcels roll along their conveyor belts per day, Swiss Post announced on Mondayexternal link. On peak days during the Christmas...

Sunrise, who is to buy UPC for CHF6.3 billion, expects the deal to go through in Autumn. COMCO, the Swiss Competition Commission, is to intensify its investigation of telecoms operator Sunrise’s takeover of UPC Switzerland, amid fears that the move could create positions of market dominance in several areas. Making the announcementexternal link Monday, COMCO wrote that “initial investigations showed that the buyout...