Tag Archives: Business

Food supplements boost milk production among dairy cows The Swiss Farmers’ Association has called on members to stop feeding dairy cows supplements that contain palm oil. The revelation has embarrassed the organisation that has been fighting against palm oil imports from Asia. Swiss public television’s (SRF) Rundschau programme has revealed that some Swiss dairy farmers feed their cows palm oil supplements to boost milk...

Food supplements boost milk production among dairy cows The Swiss Farmers’ Association has called on members to stop feeding dairy cows supplements that contain palm oil. The revelation has embarrassed the organisation that has been fighting against palm oil imports from Asia. Swiss public television’s (SRF) Rundschau programme has revealed that some Swiss dairy farmers feed their cows palm oil supplements to boost milk...

Whether or not San Francisco Fed President John Williams is right about US inflation and employment being about as close to the central bank’s targets as investors have seen – as he told CNBC two days ago – is irrelevant: The central bank is going to raise interest rates two more times this year no matter what happens to consumer prices, says Credit Suisse Chief Investment Officer for Switzerland Burkhard Varnholt....

Companies have been spending money thinking of ways to cope with the strong franc - Click to enlarge Swiss companies invested record volumes in research and development (R&D) in 2015, despite the franc exploding in value at the start of that year. The private sector was responsible for most of the CHF22 billion ($22.6 billion) R&D spending in 2015, according to official figures released on Monday. This was an...

Could robots stop Swiss manufacturing draining abroad? - Click to enlarge The strong franc continues to scare off foreign investors to Switzerland, while at the same time driving Swiss manufacturing abroad. These are the findings of the latest annual Ernst & Young foreign direct investment (FDI) survey released on Friday. FDI is the amount of money invested by firms overseas, in the shape of factories, offices,...

As much as a third of this year's Swiss apple crop may have been damaged in a late April frost - Click to enlargeAn unusual end-of-April frost is expected to cost Swiss fruit producers some CHF100 million ($102 million) in damages and as much as three-quarters of their crop this year. “We are talking about historic crop losses,” said Hubert Zufferey of the Swiss fruit growers’ association on Wednesday. Switzerland’s...

Speed and coverage of mobile telecoms is well above average in Switzerland. - Click to enlarge Speed, availability, network responsiveness: on all counts, the mobile experience in Switzerland is “an excellent one”, according to a new report. But improvements could still be made to advance on the leader board. This is the verdict published Wednesday May 24 by OpenSignal, a London-based private held company that issues...

Jenisch has driven performance under difficult circumstances at Sika - Click to enlarge The markets have welcomed Lafarge Holcim’s choice of chief executive to guide the company out of a reputational hole. Jan Jenisch, who will take over in October, has experienced difficult situations having spent the last two and a half years driving up Sika’s results against the backdrop of a shareholder civil war. Investors...

Some 202,000 passengers pass through Bern's train station during the week - Click to enlarge Bern railway station, Switzerland’s second busiest after Zurich, is set to expand with the creation of a new underground rail station serving regional trains between Bern and Solothurn. A pedestrian access area is also planned. Some 202,000 passengers pass through Bern’s main train station – the second largest in Switzerland –...

The Basel-based firm employs 120,000 people worldwide. The Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis has announced that it plans to cut 500 jobs at its Basel headquarters in Switzerland over the next 18 months. It says it will also create 350 new posts, mostly in its biotech business. Novartis said in a statement on Thursday that it planned to cut up to 500 jobs in the Basel area or to relocate workers to other sites over the...