Tag Archives: 3.) Swissinfo Business and Economy

Massive nickel mining projects are underway on New Caledonia. Last year, plans to sell a major nickel mine to a foreign consortium led by Trafigura faced major local opposition. © Biosphoto / Thibaut Vergoz – Droit Géré – Oeuvre Protégée Par Copyright – – – – Electric car manufacturers and other green energy companies are trying to get a grip on their mineral supply chains. In doing so, they are bringing commodity traders out from the shadows. To meet global climate...

Massive nickel mining projects are underway on New Caledonia. Last year, plans to sell a major nickel mine to a foreign consortium led by Trafigura faced major local opposition. © Biosphoto / Thibaut Vergoz – Droit Géré – Oeuvre Protégée Par Copyright – – – – Electric car manufacturers and other green energy companies are trying to get a grip on their mineral supply chains. In doing so, they are bringing commodity traders out from the shadows. To meet global climate...

Keystone / Mast Irham The global community is slipping in its efforts to tackle money laundering and terrorist finance, a Swiss corruption watchdog warned on Monday. The Basel Institute on Governance said the global risk score increased from 5.22 to 5.3 out of 10 (highest risk score) in its Anti-Money Laundering Index. In 2021, Switzerland scored 4.89 in the independent annual ranking that examines the risk of money laundering in 110 jurisdictions. That marks an...

The Swiss property market continues to heat up during the pandemic. Keystone / Christof Schuerpf The risk of a housing bubble has increased in the last three months, but the Swiss National Bank (SNB) is unconcerned about a general inflationary threat. In an interview with the SonntagsZeitung newspaper on Sunday, SNB vice-chairman Fritz Zurbrügg said that housing market had heated further since June. “We cannot sit back and relax,” he said. “But we have also always...

The voluntary site allowed people to register their vaccinations online, but the probe found their data was not secure. Keystone / Gaetan Bally A federal investigator has found “serious” technical failures at voluntary vaccination registry mesvaccins.ch, which was closed in May following data security concerns. “The technical failures were indeed very serious, affecting all services of the platform,” Federal Data Protection Commissioner Adrian Lobsiger told Swiss...

SIX group has backed its new DLT exchange to enhance the way stocks and bonds are traded worldwide. © Keystone / Ennio Leanza A new Swiss stock exchange has been awarded a license to trade digital assets using distributed ledger technology (DLT). On Friday, the SIX Digital Exchange (SDX) was given the go-ahead by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) to operate as a stock exchange and central securities depositoryExternal link. The licensing...

The Orca plant in Climeworks, Iceland, intends to extract 4,000 tonnes of CO2 per year from the air. Climeworks The Swiss company Climeworks has just opened in Iceland the world’s largest plant for the capture and permanent storage of carbon dioxide from the air. This technology is deemed essential for combating global warming, yet it raises some questions. What if, after decades of steady rise, global greenhouse gas emissions finally started to drop? Such is the...

Trade union representatives argue employees are entitled to higher wages as the Swiss economy has picked up from the Covid crisis. Keystone/Anthony Anex The Trade Union Federation has called for a blanket salary rise for all employees as the Swiss economy recovers from the Covid-19 crisis. Switzerland’s main trade union umbrella group said employees should be entitled to a salary increase of at least 2% or CHF100 ($109) per month. Trade union president Pierre-Yves...

Firms will have to report on how they impact the climate, and how the climate impacts their bottom line. Keystone / Yaron Kaminsky From 2024, large Swiss firms will be legally bound to report on their climate-related risks. The government has now published guidelines on which companies and which risks will be involved. The rules will apply to public and private companies with over 500 employees, over CHF20 million ($21.9 million) or CHF40 million in annual...

Adding value to cocoa can bring in more revenue for West African producers. Keystone / Legnan Koula In a bid to grab a bigger slice of the chocolate pie, cocoa-producing countries Ivory Coast and Ghana are turning to China for funding and a new marketplace. The move could pose a threat to the Swiss chocolate industry’s profit margins and its supply of raw materials. Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, VIPs in smart suits and traditional Ivorian dress gathered at an...