Tag Archives: 3.) Swissinfo Business and Economy

German-born Stefanie Hessler, 35, will head the Swiss art space starting in May. Her appointment is part of several rearrangements in institutions run by the pharma billionaire Maja Hoffmann. Last October, the Swiss Institute, a non-profit contemporary art space in New York, announced that board chair Maja Hoffmann, one of the heiresses of the Roche pharmaceutical company, had been elected president of the board of trustees. Soon afterwards, in November, the former...

Big consumer brands are leaving Russia in droves but for many Swiss companies untangling ties isn’t that easy. Last week Swiss chocolate maker Lindt & Sprüngli joined a chorus of brands like McDonald’s closing shops and suspending deliveries to Russia after its invasion of Ukraine. The decision by Lindt & Sprüngli took some by surprise. The company’s CEO, Dieter Weisskopf, had said during its annual results call a day before, that it was planning to keep...

The Swiss economics ministry has downgraded its growth forecast for 2022 due to the war in Ukraine. But it still predicts a solid post-pandemic upswing. After a couple of years impacted by Covid-19, 2022 should yet see Swiss gross domestic product (GDP) grow by 2.8%, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (Seco) said on MondayExternal link in a quarterly assessment – down from the 3% predicted last December. While the war will have an impact, Swiss economic ties...

The Swiss banks are hit by European Union sanctions against Russian clients. © Keystone/Christian Beutler Swiss banks hold between CHF150 billion and CHF200 billion ($160-$214 billion) in assets belonging to Russian clients, according to the Swiss Bankers Association. The president of the associationExternal link, Marcel Rohner, made the estimate at the group’s annual news conference on Tuesday. Overall in 2020, Swiss banks had assets under management totaling...

“No natural gas, no war” protestors in the capital Bern on Saturday ©keystone/peter Schneider Renouncing Russian oil and gas would have serious consequences for the Swiss economy, an expert from the KOF Swiss Economic Institute has told a Sunday newspaper. If imports were to be cut off, for example in the wake of tougher sanctions against Russia, Swiss gross domestic product (GDP) would fall by 3-4 percentage points, spread over two years, according to calculations...

The Swiss government has boosted its humanitarian support to victims of the war in Ukraine. On Friday it approved CHF80 million ($86 million) as an “expression of its solidarity with Ukrainians in need”. “Around 12 million people are dependent on emergency aid because of Russia’s ongoing military intervention in Ukraine. With this contribution, Switzerland is expressing its solidarity with Ukrainians in need,” the government said in a statementExternal link on...

A supermarket in St Petersburg: multinationals that supply Russians with daily necessities face tough decisions. Keystone / Anatoly Maltsev Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has led to an exodus of well-known western brands from Russia, but not every company has joined the rush. As Apple has suspended sales and BP hurriedly announced its exit over the past two weeks, those multinationals that manufacture products that Russians rely on for daily life, from food...

The Swiss Post Office more than doubled profits to CHF457 million ($493 million) last year as it was less affected by pandemic restrictions. The group’s financial arm, PostFinance, recorded a CHF272 million result, up from CHF162 million in 2020. This was achieved despite a fall in customer numbers, the amount of money they held at PostFinance and the continued negative interest rate environment. The postal service is seeing a decline in the number of letters being...

In addition to Western sanctions, many big companies have temporarily shuttered operations or exited Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. Keystone / Yuri Kochetkov Russia has drawn up a list of around 50 countries, including Switzerland, that have committed “unfriendly actions” against Russia, its companies and citizens, in the wake of severe economic sanctions over the war in Ukraine, the Russian state media agency TASS reports. Moscow published the list on Monday...

GMOs are only permitted for research purposes in Switzerland, but opposition against a moratorium appears to be weakening. © Keystone/Christian Beutler The Swiss parliament has decided to ease restrictions on genetic engineering in agriculture, while extending in principle a moratorium for genetically modified organisms (GMOs) until 2025. The Senate on Tuesday asked the government to propose details for the use of gene editing techniques on plants and seeds by the...