Tag Archives: Swiss Markets and News

Swiss unemployment services have been dealing with more and more older people. - Click to enlarge Switzerland is facing a medium-term future of labour market shortages and ratcheting pension costs, according to the latest economic outlook report by UBS bank. The quarterly appraisal,external link launched Thursday in Zurich, highlighted a paradox in the current shape of the Swiss labour market. Firstly, more and more...

The Organisation of the Swiss Abroad (OSA) has reacted angrily to the recent remarks of a politician that questioned the role of expat pensioners. An apology: this is what the OSAexternal link have demanded of Petra Gössi, the Radical Party politician whose “unacceptable” remarks about the pensions of Swiss abroad provoked a flurry of reaction last month. The letter was sent by the OSA to Petra Gössi (right) - Click to...

Bitcoins have taken a step towards acceptance by the Swiss banking community - Click to enlarge Swiss private bank Falcon has become the first mainstream wealth manager in the country to allow clients to invest bitcoins in their portfolios. The Zurich-based bank has been given the green light to accept the cryptocurrency by the Swiss financial regulator. Falcon has teamed up with cryptocurrency brokerage Bitcoin...

 La vache, source de pollution à cause du méthane contenu dans ses pets! En revanche, les blocs de béton construits sur  les près,dans lesquels elles broutaient, ne polluent pas… Une offense à notre intelligence… L’Espagne, potager de l’Europe! Le slogan est joli, mais il y a plusieurs mais! - Click to enlarge Il faut savoir que les industriels de l’agriculture exploitent ce pays de toutes les manières possibles...

Miners at the south portal of the Bözberg Tunnel, canton Aargau, in January. The tunnel is part of the strategy of shifting cargo from road to rail between Basel and Chiasso via the new Gotthard Base Tunnel - Click to enlarge The Swiss are not only the European champions in travelling by train, but they also invest the most in their country’s rail network. Last year, €378 (CHF416) per inhabitant was spent on rail...

Scientists feared the H5N1 virus could jump from birds to humans and trigger a pandemic - Click to enlarge Ten years ago Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis carried out clinical trials for a bird flu vaccine on homeless people in Poland. One man, who says they were told they were being tested for a conventional flu vaccine, is now suing the Basel-based company. When the H5N1 virus broke outexternal link among birds in...

The former site of the Dubendorf airfield near Zurich is being transformed into an innovation park that will stretch over 38 hectares (Zurich Innovation Park) - Click to enlarge Switzerland is the leading nation for innovation for the seventh year in a row, according to the Geneva-based World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The other countries in the top five for 2017 were Sweden, the Netherlands, the...

A real estate report by the bank UBS, which looks at 25 top resorts in Switzerland, Austria, France and Italy, shows vacation home price drops across Switzerland. These price falls contrast with price rises in resorts in Austria, France and Italy. With more than 10,000 second homes, Crans-Montana is Switzerland’s biggest market in the Alpine region. Next is Davos/Klosters with just under 10,000 apartments. Third is...

Cluster bombs are reviled for their indiscriminate effect and potential to kill and maim people if unexploded - Click to enlarge The leading Swiss state pension fund, Publica, has announced that it plans to disinvest from five weapons companies. This follows a national campaign by a responsible investment pension group to blacklist 15 international arms firms. According to a report by Swiss public radio, SRF, Publica,...

The cost of owning a holiday home in the Swiss Alps has declined appreciably in many towns and villages in the last five years. The biggest falls in property prices have been observed in the last 12 months, according to UBS bank researchers. Prices have dipped anywhere from 3% to 9 % year-on-year in some of the best-known Swiss tourist destinations, such as St Moritz and Verbier. This contrasts drastically with...