Tag Archives: Swiss Markets and News

A recent OECD study, which looks at retirement, shows the relatively large amount spent on pensioners in Switzerland. © Marian Vejcik | Dreamstime - Click to enlarge Switzerland consumes 11% of its GDP on retirees, compared to 9% across OECD nations. Despite this high spending, the risk of poverty is higher in Switzerland than across the OECD. According to the organisation, 19% of those over 64 in Switzerland are at...

Pressure from taxi companies and fines imposed on drivers have resulted in the retreat of UberPop from Swiss cities (Keystone) - Click to enlarge The ride-sharing firm Uber has announced it will abandon its UberPop service in the city of Basel from June 1, 2018, as it is not profitable enough. UberPop has already been discontinued in Zurich and Lausanne. According to the company, the decision was taken due to...

Imported mineral water has been increasingly popular in Switzerland over the last 25 years. (Keystone) - Click to enlarge A government study shows that imports of food products have grown by 80% — three times faster than the Swiss population — between 1990 and 2016. In that time, the quantity of imported food consumed per inhabitant went from 344 kilograms to 490 kg. The figures, published Tuesday by the...

The regional carrier is based in Lugano in southern Switzerland. (Keystone) - Click to enlarge Swiss regional carrier Darwin Airline has been forced to concede bankruptcy after a period of serious financial problems. Its plight will cause further headaches for the airport of Lugano in southern Switzerland, where it is based. A fortnight after seeing its fleet grounded by the Federal Office of Civil Aviation,...

Johann Schneider-Ammann listening to Ueli Maurer in May (Keystone) - Click to enlarge It’s “hardly a tragedy” that the European Union has placed Switzerland on a grey list of non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes, says Finance Minister Ueli Maurer. Economics Minister Johann Schneider-Ammann, on the other hand, says he is “irritated” by the move. “I rate the significance of the list as negligible,” Maurer said...

© Igor Stevanovic | Dreamstime It’s the question lurking in many people’s minds, especially during the frenzy of online Christmas shopping: has my email account been hacked? MELANI has got your back – up to a point. The Reporting and Analysis Centre for Information Assurance (MELANI), is part of the Swiss Federal Intelligence Service. They have recently come into possession of a database with 21,000 combinations of...

General Electric's Swiss headquarters is based in Baden in northern Switzerland (Keystone) - Click to enlarge General Electric (GE) has announced plans to cut around a third of its workforce based in northern Switzerland as the American multinational responds to a sharp fall in demand for fossil fuel power equipment. GE aims to cut up to 1,400 jobs over the next two years at its GE Power unit in the northern...

© Kevkhiev Yury | Dreamstime This week EU Finance ministers came out with a list of countries it thinks don’t measure up to its definition of good tax behaviour. There are two categories: blacklist and so-called “grey list”. Black is bad and grey is heading toward good, but not yet there. Switzerland is on the “grey list”. To stay off the list, countries must have fair tax rules, which are defined as not offering...

© Mohamed Ahmed Soliman | Dreamstime - Click to enlarge Many Swiss residents travel to neighbouring eurozone countries for their holidays. These countries are close and Swiss francs go far there. However, to get the most out of a strong currency you need a good exchange rate. If a Swiss resident presenting euro cash at a checkout in Germany or France was told they couldn’t pay in euros because they live in Switzerland...

Thomas Klühr, the Chief Executive Officer of Swiss International Airlines, says a lower-value Swiss franc, lower fuel costs, more demand and more efficient aircraft helped boost his airline's profits in 2017. (Keystone) - Click to enlarge Switzerland’s national airline has enjoyed a profitable year and expects continued success, but its chief executive says restrictions at Zurich Airport are making it...