Tag Archives: Swiss Markets and News

- Click to enlarge The world’s first commercial plant to extract carbon dioxide at industrial scale from the air and sell it directly to a buyer opened near Zurich on Wednesday. The machine pipes the gas to a nearby greenhouse to help grow vegetables. The Swiss firm Climeworks external linkturned on the so-called ‘Direct Air Capture (DAC)’ plant in the farming village of Hinwil, Switzerland. The plant aims to...

The country needs to reform corporation tax while mitigating economic fallout. The government will consider a package of voter-friendly sweeteners, including extra child benefits, as it strives to breathe new life into controversial company tax reforms. The new proposals come less than four months after Swiss voters rejected a major overhaul of the corporation tax landscape. At the time, in February, voters felt that...

Switzerland is rarely out of the top three in competitiveness rankings - Click to enlarge The strong franc and corporate tax uncertainty have failed to dislodge Switzerland from second place in an annual ranking of the world’s most competitive economies. The alpine state was also judged by the Lausanne-based IMD business school to have the world’s eighth best digital capability. For the second year in a row,...

Switzerland is rarely out of the top three in competitiveness rankings - Click to enlarge The strong franc and corporate tax uncertainty have failed to dislodge Switzerland from second place in an annual ranking of the world’s most competitive economies. The alpine state was also judged by the Lausanne-based IMD business school to have the world’s eighth best digital capability. For the second year in a row,...

Every three months the rate of interest used to set Swiss rents is reviewed. If it goes down some renters have the right to request a decrease in rent. This time it dropped 0.25% to 1.50%. - Click to enlarge The interest rate used to set the reference rate was the average rate on Swiss mortgages at 31 March 2017 of 1.61% which rounds to 1.50% under the rounding rules, which round to the nearest quarter of a...

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...

A study of data from 195 countries from 1990 to 2015 published recently in the medical journal The Lancet, ranks Switzerland’s healthcare system third. The analysis looked at mortality rates from causes that should not be fatal in the presence of effective medical care. It considered both healthcare access and quality and was designed with the aim of normalising for local environmental and behavioural risks. - Click...

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,...