Tag Archives: 3) Swiss Markets and News

Tourists from Asia are still outnumbered by guests from Europe and the US despite a growing number of Chinese and Indian holiday makers in Switzerland. (Archive picture) The director of Switzerland’s tourism marketing company has dismissed criticism that the country is overrun by Asian tourists. Martin Nydegger said concerns by the local population about too many tourists should be taken seriously. But the perception of...

Novartis only generated 2% of its revenue in Switzerland but paid 39% of its tax bill there. Switzerland stands to lose up to CHF10 billion ($10.2 billion) as a consequence of attempts by other countries to change how multinationals are taxed. Countries belonging to the G20 and OECDexternal link are pushing for changes in corporate taxation rules to capture a larger share of taxes of multinationals based in tax-friendly...

Paradeplatz Zurich_© Denis Linine _ Dreamstime.com The website homegate.ch has compiled data on rental prices in Zurich, Basel, Bern and Geneva over the last two years. The data shows how rents have risen in these cities and presents them on maps showing prices rises by suburb in each of these cities. The data presents rental prices for a 70 square metre three-room apartment. The most expense location in Switzerland is...

© motortion | Dreamstime.com The Swiss government has been looking at measures to shore up the finances of Switzerland’s pension system for some time. The difference between the official retirement age for women (64) and men (65) is an obvious target. Recently, the Federal Council, Switzerland’s executive, said it would include increasing the retirement age of women from 64 to 65 in a package of reforms aimed at...

US Senator Rand Paul had managed to block the agreement for 10 years. The United States Senate on Wednesday ratified a double-taxation agreement (DTA) with Switzerland, ending years of stalemate. The agreement, which required two-thirds of votes, was accepted by a large majority, according to the US Senate websiteexternal link. This accord, designed to meet international standards on the exchange of bank data, had been...

© Sebnem Ragiboglu | Dreamstime.com The Swiss bank UBS estimates there could be a shortfall of 500,000 workers in Switzerland in the coming 10 years as the baby boomer generation retires. However, the bank predicts the shortfall will not be even across all industries. Some sectors are expected to stagnate. Workers in these industries might find it harder to find work. Demand for workers is expected to be high in the...

Hairdressers are among the lowest paid workers in Switzerland, according to OFS Around 320,000 jobs in Switzerland are considered low paid, earning a gross monthly salary of under CHF4,335 ($4,400), according to the most recent nationwide statistics. In 2016, 12% of Swiss workers earned such a low monthly salary, the Federal Statistical Office (OFS) reported on Mondayexternal link. The OFS uses the Organisation for...

Last year, average new car emissions reached 137.8 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre – while the national limit is 130g CO2/km. Despite an increase in the use of biofuels and electric vehicles, fuel-related carbon dioxide emissions remained unchanged in 2018 in the country. The stagnation was due to the increase in road traffic. Owing to a rise in the average number of kilometres Swiss residents travelled last year,...

Switzerland has the densest railway network in the world. The Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) is selling its old locomotives on the Internet. Control cars, rails, switches and a firefighting train with a CHF1 million ($1 million) price tag are among the vintage vehicles on sale. You will be hard pressed to find anything for less than CHF25,000 on SBBresale.ch, according to the Sunday editions of the German-language Blick...

The firms were swapping information on rates for years, COMCO said. The Swiss competition commission (COMCO) has fined eight car leasing firms a total of CHF30 million ($30.4 million) for having swapped information on rates. The fines were announced on Thursday and come after some years of regular and systematic information exchanges between the companies on interest rates, COMCO announcedexternal...