Tag Archives: 3) Swiss Markets and News

Voters in Switzerland’s biggest canton have overwhelmingly approved a new article to promote a cleaner and more efficient use of resources. Just under 90% of Zurich citizens on Sunday said yes to the idea, which the cantonal government proposed as an alternative to an initiative by the young Green Party. All political parties were in favour of the idea. The canton’s constitution will therefore be adapted to include an article calling on authorities to create...

© Evgeniy Lapshin | Dreamstime.com On 20 September 2022, government forecasters announced downgraded expectations for GDP growth in Switzerland. A group of experts focused on predicting business cycles downgraded expected GDP growth to 2.0% in 2022 and to 1.1% in 2023. After a positive first half of the year the Swiss economy now faces a deteriorating outlook, said the group. A tense energy situation and sharp price increases are weighing on economic prospects across...

Voters have thrown out a decision by parliament to scrap withholding tax on interest from Swiss bonds. Final results show 52% of voters coming out against the reform, which was aimed at boosting investment in Switzerland as well as strengthening the country’s competitiveness and its finance industry. Cédric Wermuth, co-president of the left-wing Social Democratic Party which helped force the referendum, said voters had understood that the plan by the government and...

By normal standards, interest rates of 0.5% are considered low. But Switzerland has just emerged from a long period of negative interest after the Swiss National Bank (SNB) raised rates from -0.25% to +0.5%. When not covering fintech, cryptocurrencies, blockchain, banks and trade, swissinfo.ch’s business correspondent can be found playing cricket on various grounds in Switzerland – including the frozen lake of St Moritz. More from this author | English...

The Swiss government has given the green light to begin the construction of a temporary reserve power plant due to be operational from February next year. The executive body signed off on two decisions on Friday to speed up the approval of planning regulations for the eight-turbine plant in Birr, in the north of the country. The government had already signed a contract with the GE Gas Power company earlier this month for the CHF470 million ($480 million)...

The world’s richest people saw their wealth expand last year as stock markets and real estate gained in value, according to Swiss bank Credit Suisse. When not covering fintech, cryptocurrencies, blockchain, banks and trade, swissinfo.ch’s business correspondent can be found playing cricket on various grounds in Switzerland – including the frozen lake of St Moritz. More from this author | English DepartmentMatthew Allen Total global wealth increased by...

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent worries about energy sources make the economic outlook uncertain. (c) Copyright 2022, Dpa (www.dpa.de). Alle Rechte Vorbehalten Swiss economic growth forecasts for 2022 and 2023 have been revised significantly downwards, amid uncertainty over energy supply and inflation. A government expert group has downgraded its expectations for GDP growth to 2% in 2022, compared with the 2.6% it predicted in June. For 2023, its...

Data published on 12 September 2022 show how the pool of available housing continues to shrink in Switzerland. Photo by ILOVESwitzerland on Pexels.comOn 1 June 2022, there were 61,496 empty dwellings in Switzerland, representing 1.31% of the total housing stock. The vacancy rate has fallen 0.23 percentage points compared to a year ago. There were 9,869 fewer empty dwellings compared to the previous year, representing a striking fall of 13.8%, wrote the Federal...

The government plans to examine concrete and binding measures to save electricity in the coming weeks. © Keystone / Christian Beutler The Swiss government lacks up-to-date information on national electricity production and consumption, according to the Swiss Federal Office of Energy. This is due to the lack of digitalisation of the electricity companies. The lack of information was a focal point of Sunday news report amid rising concerns over an energy crunch in...

The Swiss competition commission (COMCO) has opened an investigation into suspected unlawful use of a patent to reduce competitive pressure by Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis. The probe, which is in collaboration with the European Commission, is looking into whether the company used unlawful means to ward off competition for its own dermatological treatments. COMCO conducted an early morning raid at the company’s Basel headquarters on September 13 in connection...