Swiss start-ups and young companies attracted nearly CHF2.3 billion ($2.4 billion) from deep-pocketed investors last year. The figure is nearly double the CHF1.2 billion collected in 2018 and sets a new record. New ventures in the ICT and fintech sectors received the largest slice of funding (CHF1.2 billion), but financial support for early stage biotech firms also received a significant boost (CHF625 million), according to the annual report from online news portal startupticker.ch and the investor association SECAexternal link.

Swiss watch manufacturers exported timepieces worth over CHF21 billion ($21.7 billion) last year – the industry’s third-best result ever. Watchmaking is Switzerland’s third-biggest export sector after pharmaceutical and machine tools. Almost 95% of production is sold abroad, the majority to Asia.

The company recently won a bid to build and run an airport near India’s capital and has its sights set on other emerging markets in Asia. In November 2019, Zürich Flughafen AG (Zurich Airport) won a 40-year contract to build and operate the planned Noida International Airport in Jewar, located around 80km from the country’s capital, New Delhi. 

Rental prices in Swiss cities became markedly more expensive last year even though vacancy rates are increasing in Switzerland. The latest study from real estate portal Homegate.ch reveals the disparity between urban and rural areas.

Tobacco giant Philip Morris says 265 jobs in Switzerland will be affected by restructuring plans, of which almost two-thirds of posts may be transferred to other European sites. After much uncertainty and news speculation, Philip Morris (PMI) confirmed on Monday its restructuring plans at operational centres in Lausanne and Neuchâtel in French-speaking western Switzerland.

Talks with US President Donald Trump this week at WEF were useful, says Swiss Economics Minister Guy Parmelin, who is cautiously optimistic about moving trade negotiations forward. “Trump had questions for me. He asked me about trade,” said Parmelin in an interview with the Sonntagszeitung newspaper. “I also informed him about Swiss investments in the United States.

Another 37,000 coins featuring tennis star Roger Federer – the first living person to receive that honor – went on sale on Thursday, according to Swissmint. Also up for grabs is the “smallest gold coin in the world” inspired by Albert Einstein and a bimetallic coin featuring the European hare.

Entrepreneurs are thriving in Switzerland, with a record number of companies launched in 2019 and unprecedented investment pumped into start-ups. Switzerland saw 44,482 companies founded last year, the highest number to date and a 3% increase on 2018, according to the Swiss Official Gazette of Commerce. Investments in start-ups also grew strongly in 2019, topping CHF2 billion ($2.06 billion) for the first time.

The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) has banned the former chief executive officer of a Swiss bank from financial activities over a “serious case of insider trading”. FINMA also ordered the confiscation of CHF730,000 ($752,000) of “unlawfully generated profits” from the ex-CEO, whom FINMA did not name.

Switzerland continues to lead the world in talent competitiveness, having held the number one spot since the annual Global Talent Competitiveness Index (GTCI) was launched in 2013. According to the 2020 indexexternal link, the three main reasons for Switzerland’s top position are the country’s high quality of life (interesting jobs, high salaries and good career opportunities), its dual education system which combines education with vocational training, and its good legal and economic framework.

Nestlé, Givaudan, Panalpina and the Bern Cantonal Bank are among 179 companies given a top “A” rating in a global survey of transparency and action on climate change. On Monday, non-profit group Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) published its study of 8,000 companies worldwide. Only 2% of them made it onto the A-list, the organisation said.

World leaders, chief executives, thinkers and celebrities are gathering in the Swiss mountain town of Davos for the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting. The event, which begins on Tuesday, has earned a reputation for high-altitude pontificating as the global elite gather to pitch their takes on topics picked by WEF founder Klaus Schwab, from deglobalisation to the fourth industrial revolution.

American secret service agents have been granted access to Zurich Airport’s control tower as they prepare for US President Donald Trump’s visit to the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, the NZZ am Sonntag reports. WEF, which starts in the Swiss mountain resort on Monday, attracts wealthy, high-profile business and political figures, along with academics and other leaders of society.

The free market in Switzerland has built housing units that remain empty because they are too expensive, or in out-of-the-way places, says Marina Carobbio Guscetti. The Social Democrat senator believes that the initiative “More affordable housing” will fix these problems. It will help the middle class and the less well-off.

The US Treasury has called on the Swiss government to cut taxes and spend more public money, after it added the country to a watchlist of those it accuses of currency manipulation. The Swiss franc nudged up to a near three-year high against the euro on Tuesday as markets anticipated the move would limit the Swiss National Bank’s appetite for aggressive action to try to hold down its currency in future.

The US Treasury Department has put Switzerland back on a biannual list of countries that are under observation because of large trade surpluses with the United States. Switzerland was previously included on the Monitoring List between October 2016 and October 2018, “having a material current account surplus and engaged in persistent, one-sided intervention in the foreign exchange market”.

Opponents of a proposal to increase tax deductions for parents have succeeded in collecting enough signatures to force a referendum on the subject. On Tuesday the leftwing Social Democratic Party submitted the necessary signatures required to trigger a referendum. The party is opposed to a “tax bonus for rich parents” and collected 60,000 signatures in two-and-a-half months to force a nationwide vote on the reform, approved by parliament last September.

Identifying the kind of fault or tectonic forces in an underground reservoir can reduce the risk of tremors caused by geothermal energy or carbon storage. The injection of cold pressurised water into hot impermeable rocks several kilometres underground is how underground reservoirs are created for geothermal energy.

Five years ago researchers at the federal technology institute ETH Zurich developed the lightest gold in the world, which could float on a cappuccino. But there wasn’t much they could do with it. Now they have created 18-carat light gold which can be used for watches, jewellery and electronics.

The Swiss unemployment rate fell to 2.3% in 2019, according to the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO). That’s the lowest yearly rate for almost 20 years. SECO said in a statementexternal link on Friday that 106,932 people were registered with regional job centres in 2019, 9.5% less than in the previous year.

US President Donald Trump plans to attend the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in the Swiss mountain resort of Davos this month, making up for an appearance he cancelled during last year’s US government shutdown. White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham confirmed on Wednesday that Trump would attend the annual forum, which attracts wealthy, high-profile business and political figures, along with academics and other leaders of society.

Switzerland’s largest trade union group has repeated its warning that any framework deal reached with the European Union must respect measures to protect wages from cross-border competition. At the annual conference of the Swiss Trade Union Federation on Thursday, the objective of keeping wage measures in place was hammered home by group president Pierre-Yves Maillard.

Flatulent bacteria, electric vehicles and a supply network for greenhouses are among the winners of this year’s Watt d’Or competition organised by the Federal Office of Energy. “What is the link between flatulence and renewable energy?” the energy office asked. “The answer is Archie, the farting archaeobacteria.”

The Swiss National Bank (SNB) expects to post an annual profit of CHF49 billion ($50.29 billion) for 2019, it said on Thursday, citing big gains from foreign bonds and stocks bought to dampen the value of the safe-haven Swiss franc. The profit, following a loss of CHF15 billion in 2018, means the central bank will pay out CHF2 billion to the Swiss government and cantons for last year and will hold discussions with the finance ministry on a possible additional distribution for 2019 and 2020.

Rents in Switzerland fell by an average of 0.5% last year but some regions bucked the trend. Last year was a good one for tenants, according to the Swiss Real Estate Offer Indexexternal link, which was published on Tuesday. December alone saw rents dropping 0.4% on average. The most significant drops were in central Switzerland (-1.7%), the Lake Geneva region (-1.1%) and northwestern Switzerland (-0.9%).

Switzerland’s largest watch maker, Swatch, says it will limit the number of movements it makes for the industry in a bid to end a long-running stand-off with the anti-trust regulator. At the end of last year, the Competition Commission (Comco) temporarily suspended deliveries of watch movements from Swatch’s ETA unit to big rivals from January 1, 2020.

Stacking blocks of concrete with a crane to store energy and use the force of gravity to keep producing electricity when renewable sources are lacking: simple but revolutionary, the battery solution proposed by the Ticino start-up Energy Vault is attracting investors and customers from around the world.

The US delegation at the upcoming World Economic Forum (WEF) gathering in Davos will be led by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. It is unclear whether President Donald Trump will again attend the annual event.

The Leibstadt nuclear power station in northern Switzerland has been disconnected from the power grid and shut down because of a technical fault. Once the cause has been clarified, the plant will be put back into operation as soon as possible, the operator said. It is not clear when that will be.

Facebook’s Libra project needs reworking to be approved, according to the president of Switzerland, where the cryptocurrency is seeking regulatory consent. “I don’t think [Libra has a chance in its current form], because central banks will not accept the basket of currencies underpinning it,” Finance Minister Ueli Maurer, who held the rotating presidency in 2019, told Swiss public radio, SRF.

The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority FINMA says it will have an independent auditor investigate Swiss bank Credit Suisse “in the context of observation activities”. “The observation activities carried out by Credit Suisse raise various compliance issues,” FINMA said in a statement on Friday evening.

The Swiss parliament has approved the purchase of a new fleet of fighter jets to the tune of some CHF6 billion ($6.1 billion). The plans may yet face approval by citizens. Both chambers of parliament have now accepted plans proposed by the government to buy up to 30 new fighter jets, a step it says is vital for the stability and security of the country.

The Swiss parliament has given the go-ahead for a free trade deal with Indonesia, although not without debates about sustainability and the Asian country’s production of palm oil. Almost exactly a year after the deal was signed between the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) and Indonesia, the Swiss parliament gave its green light on Thursday.

There has been a fall in the number of accidents and fatalities on the Swiss railways, according to new national figures. On Tuesday, the Federal Statistical Office reported a total of 70 rail accidents and 14 deaths in 2018. This is the lowest number of annual fatalities since 2011. In the 2000s there were between 200 and 282 reported accidents each year and 20-40 deaths, excluding suicides on the Swiss rail network.

Although Switzerland is rich, poverty within the country continues to rise, says a report released on Tuesday. Poverty affected 675,000 people including 100,000 children in 2017, a 10% increase on the previous year, according to the report (in French) by the non-governmental organisation Caritas.

A Zurich court has rejected plans for a cablecar link crossing over Lake Zurich, stating that the project, known as ‘Zuribahn’, did not have sufficient local support. The court annulled construction plans for the city cablecar, which had been presented by Zurich Cantonal Bank (ZKB) to mark the bank’s 150th birthday in 2020.

A Zurich commercial court has dismissed claims for damages by a consumer group against the German car firm Volkswagen and Swiss importer Amag, linked to the “Dieselgate” emissions-rigging scandal. In a December 6 ruling published on Tuesday, Zurich canton’s commercial court said the SKS consumer group did not have the legal status or procedural capacity to file a complaint.

A senior Credit Suisse human resources executive was tailed by private investigators in February, the Neue Zuercher Zeitung (NZZ) newspaper reported on Tuesday. The Swiss bank was rocked by a highly damaging spygate case earlier this year involving the surveillance of former wealth management boss Iqbal Khan.

Commuters got their first proper taste on Monday of what’s been hailed as the largest cross-border regional rail network in Europe, the Léman Express.The network, which opened officially on Sunday, is the result of decades of planning and almost eight years of construction work. It offers a fast cross-city rail link from Geneva’s central train station to Annemasse in France.

Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis has backed down in a patent dispute over the leukaemia therapy Kymriah following opposition from NGOs. The Swiss NGO Public Eye is claiming victory in the European Patent Officeexternal link battle, but Novartis says the patent in question was only one of several it has in place on the (CAR)-T cell therapy treatment it had developed together with the University of Pennsylvania.

The Swiss economy is not expected to see any sustainable growth until 2021 at the earliest, according to government forecasters. The Swiss National Bank (SNB) agreed, keeping negative interest rates unchanged. A government expert group concluded that economic growth would rise only 0.9% this year, 1.7% in 2020 and 1.2% in 2021.

Companies in Switzerland invested double the amount abroad in 2018 than the previous year, figures show. But foreign investors withdrew capital from Switzerland due to a US tax reform. In 2018, companies domiciled in Switzerland invested CHF 61 billion abroad ($62 billion) (compared to CHF30 billion in 2017). Around three-quarters of the direct investment were from firms in the services sector, the Swiss National Bank said on Friday.

Switzerland performs a delicate dance when it comes to promoting business interests, maintaining neutrality and defending human rights. Daniel Warner looks at recent examples and the stakes at play. Doing business with other countries and promoting human rights can and do go hand in hand, Swiss State Secretary for Foreign Affairs Pascale Baeriswyl recently told swissinfo.ch.

As part of its monitoring programme, Swiss multinational Nestlé has identified 18,283 children performing “unacceptable” tasks at cocoa farms that supply beans to the company. Over half have been rehabilitated following company intervention. In 2012, Nestlé established a Child Labor Monitoring and Remediation System (CLMRS) in partnership with the International Cocoa Initiative (ICI) in the Ivory Coast to identify children at risk of carrying out problematic jobs and to take remediation measures.

This year, the signal from the scientific community has been loud and clear on climate change: something needs to be done, and soon. But leadership at the United Nations’ annual climate conference appears less clear-cut, and the head of the Swiss delegation is frustrated by hesitation to move ahead.

Swiss asset managers are involved in some of Austria’s biggest corruption scandals, according to the SonntagsZeitung newspaper. The paper writes that in ongoing cases involving far-right politicians Jörg Haider, Karl-Heinz Grasser and Heinz-Christian Strache, the trail leads back to Zurich, Zug and Nidwalden in Switzerland. It sources this information to a whistleblower.

The company Swiss Space Systems (S3) received financial backing from a fictitious bank as it unsuccessfully fought against bankruptcy, according to media reports. S3, which promised simulated space flights to the public, collapsed in 2017 amid much controversy.

A national strike in France is causing severe disruptions to high-speed TGV rail traffic between Paris and Switzerland. Swiss Federal Railways issued an advisory discouraging travel along this route from December 5 to 8. Only one TGV train will operate between France and Switzerland on Thursday.

Swiss spending on environmental protection has increased 45% in the last eighteen years, while the number of people employed in the sector has almost doubled. Environmental protection spending rose from CHF8.5 billion ($8.6 billion) in 2000 to CHF12.4 billion in 2018, according to the Federal Statistical Officeexternal link. As a percentage of GDP, it has remained rather stable, fluctuating between 1.9% and 1.7%.

Swiss bank Julius Bär has been ordered to pay CHF153 million ($155 million) to settle a claim that one of its subsidiaries pilfered money from Germany during the reunification of the country in the 1990s. A Swiss court on Wednesday overturned a previous verdict that Julius Bär should not he held responsible. The Swiss wealth manager has been pursued for damages by a German state department that tracks down assets from the former East Germany.

With 10,329 registrations so far this year, Switzerland and Liechtenstein have more new electric passenger cars than ever before. This is the first time the total hit the five-figure mark. The numbers reflect a 136.6% increase over last year’s fleet of new, completely electric passenger cars. What’s more, now e-cars represent 3.7% of all new cars in Switzerland and the principality next door, reported importer association Auto-Schweiz on Tuesday.

Pro-Russian separatists are financing their war in Ukraine with coal deliveries to the West. Now the role of Swiss companies in Zug and Geneva is being investigated, according to a report in the SonntagsZeitung. Fontus AG describes itself on its website as a “reliable and responsible supplier of high-grade solid fuels”, selling “coal of Russian and Kazakh production”.

Flughafen Zürich AG, the operator of Zurich airport, has been selected to design, develop and operate a new airport near the Indian capital after outbidding local companies. The companyexternal link said in a statement on Fridayexternal link it would develop and operate the new Noida International Airport at Jewar in Uttar Pradesh state under a 40-year concession.

The shortage of skilled workers on the Swiss job market has become even more acute this year, according to a survey. Finding suitable engineers, technical workers and fiduciaries is particularly difficult. The skilled worker shortage index(PDF), compiled annually by Adecco Switzerland in collaboration with the University of Zurich, measures the occupations in which the number of vacancies is particularly large compared with the number of job-seekers.

Import duties on various products including cars, clothes, and household appliances are set to be removed in Switzerland. If parliament approves the plan, the measure will enter into force in 2022. Finance Minister Guy Parmelin announced the plan on Wednesday after what the government described as a very positive consultation process with stakeholders.

Firms in Switzerland may benefit annually by over CHF3,000 ($3,000) per apprentice when they train their own apprentices, a report has found. The fourth cost-benefit studyexternal link conducted by the Observatory for Vocational Education and Training of the Swiss Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (OBS SFIVETexternal link), published on Tuesdayexternal link, revealed that most companies with apprenticeship programmes found it cheaper to train their own skilled workers than to hire them externally.

Switzerland will issue 8,500 work visas to non-EU citizens next year – the same number as in 2019. The Swiss government also confirmed an earlier decision that 3,500 British workers will be welcomed in the event of a no-deal Brexit situation.

Only 3% of adult internet users buy nothing online, with the elderly most likely to stick to bricks-and-mortar shops, according to a survey. Online comparison service Comparis.ch said on Tuesday that whereas 6% of those aged 56-74 were yet to place an order online, the number of abstainers among 18- to 35-year-olds was less than 1%.

Lugano authorities have approved a series of loans to help save Lugano Airport in southern Switzerland, allowing it to operate for at least one more year. The regional airport has struggled since the bankruptcy of Darwin Airline and collapse of Adria Airways in September.

Two bankers who worked at Coutts private bank in Zurich were fined by the Swiss authorities for failing to report suspicious transactions linked to the sovereign wealth fund 1MDB scandal, it was reported on Sunday. The Sonntag Zeitung and Le Matin Dimanche newspapers reported on Sunday that two Coutts bankers who had dealt with Jho Low, the Malaysian financier allegedly at the heart of the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal, were fined by the Federal Department of Finance in September.

A CHF640 ($645) bar of chocolate is a sign of either the end of civilisation or a healthy market economy. Whatever your view, Switzerland holds several world records when it comes to expensive goods. “As the hammer came down on $31 million (CHF30.6 million), the audience leapt as one to its feet, erupting in wild cheering and thunderous applause,” the Financial Times wrote on November 11 as a world record was set in Geneva for the highest price of a watch at auction.

Voters in Geneva have backed a local initiative calling for controlled development of the airport. According to initial results, 55.81% of voters said “yes” on Sunday to the constitutional initiative calling for the “democratic piloting of Geneva Airport”.

Swiss investigators have executed searches at the Geneva offices of commodity traders Vitol and Trafigura at the request of Brazilian federal prosecutors as part of Brazil’s Lava Jato [Car Wash] corruption probe. In a statementexternal link on Thursday, Brazilian federal prosecutors said Swiss investigators had executed “search and seize warrants” at Geneva addresses linked to Vitol and Trafigura on Wednesday.

Switzerland is on track to meet its short-term greener energy goals, but the government warns that more work needs to be done to meet more ambitious mid-term targets by 2035. The alpine country plans to be carbon neutral by 2050.

Ueli Maurer, who holds the rotating Swiss presidency this year, was set to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Thursday. It is Maurer’s fourth foreign visit this year that has raised eyebrows in Switzerland.

On November 19, 1999, after eight years of construction, the Vereina Tunnel opened in eastern Switzerland.Connecting the Landquart – Davos Platz and the Bever – Scuol-Tarasp lines, the tunnel is 19 kilometres long and the journey through takes 18 minutes.In 20 years, it has brought various improvements to locals, tourists, and businesses.However, its construction had initially been opposed by some as it was feared that the tunnel would lead to increased road traffic and a decline in the Romansh language.

Swiss precision machine maker Mikron has laid off 25 workers, citing weak demand for its products from the global car industry. The news reflects pessimistic sentiment from Swiss manufacturers and the wider economy. Mikron announced on Tuesday that it would have to reduce headcount at a plant in southern Switzerland from its present level of 370.

For the sixth consecutive year, Switzerland clinched the top spot in the annual global ranking of the Lausanne-based IMD business school. The 2019 edition of the IMD World Talent Ranking ranked Switzerland highly in the three areas assessed. It came first in appeal, second in investment and development and second in readiness. Denmark, Sweden, Austria and Luxembourg rounded out the top five.

Swiss wealth manager Julius Bär has downgraded its expectations for attracting new assets from rich clients and announced a CHF99 million ($100 million) write-down on its troubled Italian subsidiary Kairos. Julius Bär issued the warning on Tuesday, less than three months into the tenure of new CEO Philipp Rickenbacher.

What did the United Nations ever do for us? At the risk of a bit of cliched riffing on that famous scene in Monty Python’s Life of Brian, this month’s column is going to take a look at things the UN does that you may not know about. And one thing in particular: promoting fair and equitable access to the internet.

The busiest shopping day of the year in the United States has become big business in Switzerland. But, some worry about the risks of consumers falling into debt and the pressure the Black Friday “holiday” puts on employees and the postal service.

Switzerland must do more to find employment options for older citizens and increase work productivity says the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (Seco). If not, prosperity for all will decline as the population ages. The median age of the Swiss population has risen to 43 compared to 32 in 1970. By 2060 this will rise further to 48-years-old going by current fertility rates.

The Swiss National Bank (SNB) is doing enough to mitigate climate damage with its investment policy, senior directors have stated. Switzerland’s central bank does not have the mandate to impose environmental conditions on the commercial banking sector.

The Swiss government has decided to earmark CHF180 million ($182 million) as part of a package to promote the transfer of heavy-goods transport from road to rail. In its bill to parliament, the government foresees an extension of payments to transport companies using freight trains until 2026 and a decrease in so-called track access charges with CHF90 million each.

Banknotes as old as 1976 can soon be traded in at the national bank following a decision by the federal government to eliminate the 20-year time limit. The Swiss National Bank (SNB) issues a new series of banknotes every 15 to 20 years and removes the old notes from circulation. Six months later, the old notes don’t have a legal tender and therefore can’t be used as a means of payment.

Following shareholder pushback, Swiss telecom operator Sunrise has cancelled the purchase contract for the cable network operator UPC, officially burying the controversial deal. This is another failed attempt to challenge industry leader Swisscom.

The number of people from neighbouring countries commuting to Switzerland for work each day reached a record 325,000 this year. The increase was felt especially in cantons Ticino and Geneva. Following a slight drop in 2018, the Swiss job market is once again attracting cross-border workers in historically high numbers. Some 325,291 peopleexternal link entered the country each day in the third quarter of 2019, beating the previous record of 316,491 set in 2017.

World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab will not be receiving honorary Swiss citizenship, despite the idea having being mooted earlier this year. Such an honorary conferral of the passport has no basis in Swiss law, the Federal Justice Office announced on Tuesday, after it was contacted by the daily Südostschweiz newspaper.

The world lost 57 billionaires last year as economic woes and the unexpected strengthening of the US dollar wiped $388 billion (CHF386 billion) from their combined wealth. Switzerland had three fewer billionaires; the 33 who remain saw their bank accounts shrink by $16 billion.

Switzerland will incur a further CHF100 million ($101 million) loss as it continues to reduce its merchant shipping fleet. The ongoing bill for selling off ships and meeting their debt obligations has now risen to an estimated CHF300 million, the government has admitted.

Swiss lakes offer huge potential as renewable energy sources that can be used to cool and heat buildings. Geneva is expanding a pioneering thermal exchange project to help meet its climate goals, while other regions are taking the plunge. After transport, the second and third biggest sources of national greenhouse gas emissions are Swiss industry (20% of total in 2017) and households (18%).

Blockchain and cryptocurrencies seem to be all over the news, but is this a flash-in-the-pan gimmick or a real digital service that can impact on the lives of ordinary people?

A survey of Swiss companies commissioned by UBS bank concludes that negative interest rates are harming the wider economy. Switzerland’s largest bank, UBS, asked 2,500 companies about the impact of negative interest rates. “Nearly two-thirds of respondents said that the cost…for the economy outweighed their benefits overall,” UBS said in a press releaseexternal link on Thursday.

Bombardier says it expects to deliver all 62 double-decker express trains ordered by Swiss Federal Railways by summer 2021. Deliveries should have been made as early as 2013 but have been fraught with technical problems. The trains were ordered in 2010 for a total of CHF 1.9 billion ($1.9 billion), making it the largest contract in the history of rail transport.

Solar energy is the main source of renewable energy in Switzerland, after hydroelectric power. But its potential is far from being exploited, according to industry experts. In 1982 Switzerland became the first country in Europe to connect a photovoltaic plant to the electricity network. Ten years later it inaugurated what at the time was the continent’s largest solar power station.

The environmental group Greenpeace claims that the Swiss food giant procured palm oil from suppliers linked to around 9,700 fire hotspots in Indonesia this year. A Greenpeace reportexternal link released on Monday examines the supply chain of four major food companies – Nestlé, Unilever, Procter & Gamble and Mondelēz – and compares them to palm oil suppliers that are under investigation for starting illegal fires.

It’s not the first time Uber has faced some bumps on the road in canton Geneva. But the latest move requiring the ride-hailing company to treat drivers as employees could spell big changes for the company. Will Uber call it quits or set a precedent for other cities?

The Farinet – a local currency introduced in canton Valais in 2017 – is to be withdrawn from circulation at the end of 2019 after failing to stimulate the regional economy as hoped. Farinet banknotes were introduced in Valais in western Switzerland in spring 2017. But on Tuesday the association behind the currency announced it planned to withdraw it at the end of this year.

Trade tensions coupled with a slowdown in Europe are likely to take a toll on the Swiss economy over the next two years, the OECD forecasts. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has revised its growth forecasts downwards for Switzerland. It also recommended Switzerland raise its retirement age.

When it came under fire from environmental groups over its harvesting of palm oil, Swiss food giant Nestlé committed to eliminating deforestation from its supply chain by next year. But it will take another three years to come close to accomplishing that goal.

The last telephone box in French-speaking Switzerland, on the shores of Lake Geneva, was dismantled on Thursday. Swisscom will remove the one in the country – in Baden, northern Switzerland – on November 28. An era in the history of Swiss telecommunications is thus coming to an end, an era that witnessed millions of declarations of love, tears and banal conversations in the little cabins that once stood on almost every street corner.

Credit Suisse CEO Tidjane Thiam has reiterated that he had nothing to do with the spying scandal that recently rocked the bank. Thiam insisted that the debacle has not damaged business as the bank presented better than expected third quarter results.

An awareness campaign has been launched to help addicted online gamblers in Switzerland cope with their compulsive behaviour. An independent foundation said it published a special digital programme, Gambling without Addiction, with the authorities in most cantons of German-speaking Switzerland.

The American industrial conglomerate General Electric has announced a reduction in the number of planned layoffs at its subsidiaries in Switzerland. The company said a maximum of 200 people would lose their jobs at two of its sites west of Zurich. In June it had announced a figure of some 450.

Employees in Switzerland are expected to receive above-inflation pay rises for the first time since 2016, according to a survey of companies. On average, workers are forecast to take home a 1.1% pay hike – a rise of 0.9% when taking inflation into account. These are the findings of research portal Lohntendenzen.ch, as reported by the NZZ am Sonntag newspaper.

Under pressure to invest, Swiss pension funds are ploughing money into real estate, considered a safe and profitable option. As this drives up housing prices, however, desperate residents are fighting back through direct democracy. Building land in central Switzerland is scarce, and apartments and houses expensive, especially in cities.

Mark Zuckerberg testified in front of the US Congress on Wednesday about his company’s plans to launch a new, global digital currency. During a marathon hearing, the Facebook chief executive and founder attempted to change the narrative surrounding Project Libra. The proposed currency has been beset by criticism from regulators and politicians, while support from corporate partners has dwindled.

In a modest Zurich neighbourhood, long-time residents of a sprawling apartment complex will lose their homes if a planned renewal project backed by a pension fund goes ahead. Similar projects are happening across Switzerland as funds invest heavily in real estate amid low interest rates.

The Swiss are using the internet more than ever but have growing angst about companies like Facebook violating their privacy. The consequence is a rising trend to self-censorship: not looking for certain information or not expressing oneself online.

Swiss luxury startups are finding it difficult to break into an established market that can be averse to change due to longstanding traditions. “When I was working for an auction house a couple of years ago the chairman handed me a gadget a client had given him. It was a USB stick and he did not know what it was.”

Cameron and Tyler Winkelvoss, who made a fortune out of bitcoin, are to deliver a keynote speech at next year’s Crypto Finance Conference in St Moritz. The annual gathering of cryptocurrency entrepreneurs and investors has become a fixture event, running just before the World Economic Forum’s flagship Davos summit.

The Swiss food giant has been placed second behind Coca-Cola in an audit of plastic waste by a coalition of environmental organisations. The results of the analysis, released on Wednesday by the Break Free From Plasticexternal link movement, prompted the authors to single out the corporations that finished in the top three for the second year in a row – Coca-Cola, Nestlé and PepsiCo – for having offered “mostly false solutions to the plastics crisis.”

Almost 100 Japan Tobacco International (JTI) staff protested outside their Geneva headquarters on Tuesday against job cuts. Around a quarter of the Geneva workforce are affected by major restructuring plans. Last month the multinational firm behind cigarette brands like Winston, Camel and Benson & Hedges confirmed restructuring plans and job cuts. Some 268 posts out of 1,100 are due to be cut at the Geneva headquarters.

The Swiss-based agricultural firm has set aside $2 billion (around CHF1.97 billion) over five years to reduce emissions from agricultural practices. The company, which has come under fire for profiting from selling hazardous pesticides abroad, also announced on Tuesday that it will be reducing its carbon footprint by 50% by 2030.

The Swiss have pulled away from the pack when it comes to assets per adult, remaining on average the wealthiest citizens in the world. In concrete terms, by mid-2019 assets per adult in Switzerland stood at $564,650 (CHF555,000), an increase of $17,790 over the previous year, according to the tenth Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report, published on Monday.

Travellers in Switzerland are increasingly taking to the rails for trips abroad, with the Swiss Federal Railways reporting a 10% increase in demand for international journeys and 25% more demand for trips by night train. According to a report in the NZZ am Sonntag newspaper, demand for night train journeys especially increased on stretches between Switzerland and the German cities of Berlin and Hamburg, while overall demand for international trips rose most on routes to France.

Swiss banknotes are far more resistant to counterfeiters than in previous years, dramatically reducing the number of fake copies, say federal police. By contrast, far more counterfeit coins were seized last year, probably as a result of better detection methods. In 2018, a record low of 1,200 fake banknotes were discovered by police.

As more governments mull the risks of working with foreign vendors of 5G networks, eyes are on Switzerland as one of the technology’s early adopters. Will the Swiss take a heavier hand in restricting foreign providers like Huawei in the 5G supply chain or let the market decide? In a grim but not-so-far-fetched scenarioexternal link, a hacker attacks a 5G antenna, sending malicious signals to millions of connected devices.

Credit Suisse has joined the likes of UBS and Post Finance in charging rich clients to park their wealth in its vaults. It will pass on the cost of the central bank’s negative interest rates to both private individuals and corporate accounts above certain thresholds. From November 15, corporate clients will be charged -0.85% interest on cash holdings above CHF10 million ($10 million), Credit Suisse confirmed on Friday.

The Geneva-based trading company Gunvor has been ordered to pay almost CHF94 million ($94.6 million), including a fine of CHF4 million over bribery in Africa. The commodities trader failed to prevent its employees and agents from bribing public officials between 2008 and 2011 in order to gain access to the petroleum markets in the Republic of Congo and Ivory Coast, the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland (OAG) said in a statement on Thursday.

Facebook’s cryptocurrency payments project, Libra, has suffered a major blow with the withdrawal of seven key partners. But the Geneva-based Libra Association continues to battle on against a regulatory onslaught by adopting a charter and forming an executive team.

When Tidjane Thiam arrived at the helm of Credit Suisse in the summer of 2015, he was a hero. Plucked from the same role at UK insurer Prudential, where he had doubled the share price in six years, he had big plans to shrink the Swiss group’s investment bank, slash costs, raise fresh capital and expand in Asia.

Labour unions are demanding a probe of companies’ pre-1990 working conditions in the southern Swiss canton of Ticino, in connection with recent asbestos-linked deaths. They are targeting particularly Swiss Federal Railways and the Swiss accident insurance fund SUVA.

The United Nations is facing a serious cashflow crisis, as 63 states – including its largest contributor, the United States – have not paid their annual dues. In Geneva, officials at the UN’s European headquarters (UNOG) are considering ways to cut costs, while the host nation looks on anxiously.

All the Swiss Federal Railways’ new Bombardier double-decker trains will have to go in for repairs for certain parts to be replaced, it has emerged. The news of the latest technical problems was broken by Swiss public television SRF, citing internal documents. At present, 12 out of the 59 Bombardier trains are in operation on a line between Chur (in southeastern Switzerland) and Basel in the northwestern part of the country.

A solar panel project which could power over 6,000 households has been launched in a mountain lake in southwestern Switzerland. The Romande Energie company unveiled the first part of its floating solar project in Bourg-Saint-Pierre on Wednesday after six years of exploratory work. The installation consists of 2,240 square metres of solar panels sitting on a 36-part aluminium and polyethylene frame anchored to the bed of the mountain lake.

Switzerland has acknowledged the fact that European Union will remove the country from its grey list for tax havens following a reform of the corporate tax system. “Switzerland meets and implements international tax standards. The European Union has acknowledged this…” said a statement, released by the State Secretariat for International Finance (SIF), on Thursday.

Commuters in the Geneva region are becoming increasingly disillusioned with private cars and are embracing “multimodal” forms of transport, a survey has found. An in-depth survey of commuter behaviour in the Greater Geneva region – covering canton Geneva, the Nyon region in neighbouring canton Vaud, and France – has revealed an increasingly negative attitude towards driving.

The new CHF100 ($100) banknote, which went into circulation last month, has blocked bank ATMs in half a dozen German-speaking Swiss cantons. Bank machines belonging to the PostFinance bank do not seem to like the new blue CHF100 note, which was officially launched on September 12.

Switzerland has slipped down a slot in the annual Global Competitiveness Index from the World Economic Forum (WEF). Having come in fourth in 2018, Switzerland now follows Singapore, the United States, Hong Kong and the Netherlands. The index covers 141 countries. The world economy is not ready for a major slowdown, warns WEF.

Switzerland’s biggest firms – mainly banks, pharmaceutical firms and insurance companies – donate at least CHF5 million ($5 million) a year to political parties and candidates, a survey has revealed. The poll of 140 companies by Swiss public radio RTS, published on Tuesday, found that one in five firms donate regularly to political parties or politicians, to the tune of CHF5 million annually.

When Antonio Guterres was elected United Nations Secretary General in 2016, some criticized the decision because they thought a woman should finally be at the helm of the international organisation. To his credit, Guterres has filled many of the UN’s top posts with women including Mirjana Spoljaric – Switzerland’s top ranking UN diplomat in New York.

In its second-ever data sharing exercise as part of a global automatic exchange of information (AEOI) treaty, Switzerland shared financial account information with 63 partner countries. On Monday, the Swiss Federal Tax Authority revealed that it had provided details of around 3.1 million bank accounts held by foreigners to the countries of their origin.

In an interview with the newspaper NZZ am Sonntag, former Credit Suisse CEO Oswald Grübel has criticized the large Swiss bank for its handling of the current crisis. By maintaining that CEO Tidjane Thiam was unaware of the spying affair, the bank is harming the Swiss financial sector, Grübel said in an interview published on Sunday.

Hackers successfully attacked the website of the Swiss Consumer Protection Foundation last month, placing links to fake stores within the agency’s online shopping pages. The hack was detected within two hours and the malicious links were removed, said the foundation, which regularly warns consumers about online fraud.

European Union finance ministers are set to remove Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) from the bloc’s lists of countries deemed to act as tax havens, an EU document said. On October 10 they are expected to remove Switzerland from the grey list that includes countries that have committed to change their tax rules to make them compliant with EU standards.

Swiss pharmaceutical firm Novartis and computer giant Microsoft have signed a five-year partnership deal aimed at transforming the Basel-based pharma’s business – from finance to manufacturing – using artificial intelligence.

The organisers of the Fête des Vignerons – a traditional winegrowers’ festival in the Swiss lakeside town of Vevey – is scrambling to cover its multi-million-franc deficit for 2019. The local winegrowers’ guild behind the once-in-a-generation private festival, which started in the 17th century, reported a CHF15 million ($14.9 million) loss for the 2019 edition on Tuesday.

The usually discrete world of Swiss private banking has been shaken by spying revelations at Credit Suisse, the country’s second largest wealth manager. Chairman Urs Rohner has acknowledged that the sordid affair has damaged the reputation of the bank and the Swiss financial centre.

Credit Suisse Group Chief Operating Officer Pierre-Olivier Bouee has resigned following a spying scandal that has rocked Switzerland’s financial circles and which the lender said caused severe reputational damage to the bank. Bouee, a long-time associate of Chief Executive Officer Tidjane Thiam, assumed responsibility for the surveillance of former Credit Suisse executive Iqbal Khan along with the bank’s head of security.

Between 2021 and 2027, the Swiss National Accident Insurance Fund (SUVA)external link plans to cut about 20% of its jobs in the claims management department. Currently, that department has more than 800 jobs, including agency clerks, district physicians, insurance physicians at the head office and lawyers for objections and court cases.

Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency poses no threat to central banks or to financial law and order, the head of the Geneva-based Libra Association tells swissinfo.ch. Many regulators, politicians and central banks have reacted with alarm to the proposed new digital payments system.

Victims of rights abuses in Sudan have filed a legal complaint against the French BNP Paribas bank and its Swiss subsidiary, accusing them of complicity in crimes against humanity, genocide and torture allegedly committed in Darfur between 2002 and 2008.

Zurich is a sober and orderly city, so a fierce altercation near the Swiss National Bankexternal link between a banker to the world’s billionaires and a private detective who was trailing him is worthy of John Le Carré. It is all the more lurid that Credit Suisse ordered surveillance of Iqbal Khan after he left abruptly for its rival UBS.

I think it’s fair to say many people may not have heard of the Universal Postal Union (UPU). Its unassuming headquarters sits peacefully in a leafy suburb of Bern. It is the only United Nations agency to grace Switzerland’s capital with a presence. In fact, the UPU is older than the UN itself. Founded in 1874, its mandate is to regulate the booming new (in the 19th century) international communication of letters and parcels.

You might think twice before overcooking a load of steak, chops and sausages on the barbecue: meat costs 2.3 times more in Switzerland than the European Union average. The priciest EU country for meat, Austria, is 1.46 times the average.

“Playing with fire,” is the verdict of the Swiss press, in reaction to the free trade deal largely agreed between EFTA countries – among them Switzerland – and the Mercosur bloc, that includes Brazil. Questions have been raised over the timing of the agreement.

The publicly-owned company Swiss Post, which had abandoned its electronic voting system in July over security concerns, has developed a new version. “We have already proposed a solution” to cantons, said general manager Roberto Cirillo in an interview published by the La Liberté newspaper on Friday.

This year’s CHF200,000 ($204,000) J.E. Brandenberger Foundation prize has been awarded to Yvonne Kurzmeyer, founder of the charity organisation Schweizer Tafel. The organisation redistributes over 4,000 tonnes of food a year to underprivileged groups in Switzerland.

Large companies in Switzerland will have to analyse wages of men and women starting in 2020 and make the audited results available to staff in 2021. The Federal Council agreed on Wednesday that the equal pay revision to the Gender Equality Act, passed by parliament in December 2018, will come into force on July 1, 2020.

The vast majority of Swiss people enjoy going to work. In a survey by consultants EY, 87% said they were satisfied or very satisfied with their job. Although the figure has barely changed since last year, differences between sectors persist. In the construction industry and in mechanical and systems engineering, for example, satisfaction has increased significantly.

Pollution from agriculture, former industrial sites and landfills is threatening Switzerland’s groundwater reserves, according to a detailed study of water quality. The water quality study from the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN), released on Thursday, said groundwater faces the greatest pressures in areas of high farming activity.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has fined Lorenz Erne, a former senior executive at Swiss pharmaceutical firm Roche, for insider trading and ordered him to pay back the ill-gotten profits. Erne accepted the accusations and agreed to the terms of a settlement with the SEC, according to an SEC document published on Thursday. He has to pay back $159,228 (CHF156,000) plus a fine of $79,614 within 14 days to the SEC “for transfer to the general fund of the United States Treasury”.

Switzerland’s financial centre has a positive reputation abroad, despite a string of scandals in 2018, according to a 19-nation survey conducted by Presence Suisse. The reputation and quality of Swiss banks were rated as “good” to “very good” by most respondents in the international poll of 12,767 people. The ethics and responsibility of the Swiss banking sector are also well regarded.

Analysis of survey questions filled out by Swiss politicians in 2015 and 2019 shows a marked turnaround in attitudes towards the introduction of a carbon tax on fuel. The Smartvote online platform asks politicians various attitudinal questions in an effort to help voters make up their minds in the lead up to national elections.

Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis has dismissed criticism that it allegedly withheld information about animal testing data inaccuracies to United States authorities for a human gene therapy. Novartis said its subsidiary in California began investigating the alleged data manipulation for its gene therapy Zolgensma as soon as it learned about it.

The cash-strapped Baoshida Swissmetal company has been taken over by a group of Swiss investors six years after it was sold to a Chinese group. The newly-founded Swissmetal Industries, backed by two private investors, said it had acquired the firm, which employs about 160 people at two factories in the small towns of Dornach and Reconvilier.

One knock-on effect of the escalating trade war between the United States and China is that the Swiss franc is becoming more attractive for investors – putting pressure on the Swiss National Bank (SNB) to come to the defence of the safe haven currency. For much of July a euro bought at least CHF1.10.

American visitors to Switzerland have increased by over 40% in five years and represent a major growth motor for the tourism industry, annual statistics show. Chinese and Indian tourists are often seen as the future of Swiss tourism, the SonntagsZeitung and Le Matin Dimanche newspapers reported at the weekend. However, they say, “North America is the real growth engine when it comes to overseas visitors”.

Glencore has taken a $350 million hit because of falling cobalt prices as the problems facing its African copper business continue to pile up. The Switzerland-based miner and commodity trader has been grappling with a string of issues in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where it operates two copper mines, and in Zambia, where it owns another asset.

The Swiss food giant has announced plans to invest CHF99 million (around $100 million) to expand three factories in Indonesia. The goal is to increase Nestlé’s production capacity in the country by 25%, according to a company announcement on Wednesday.

Smart Valor, the country’s first integrated cryptocurrency exchange offering custody, trading and brokerage, has gone live with nine crypto-fiat trading pairs. The assets on Zug-based platform, that was launched in 2017 as part of the Thomson Reuters Incubator, includes crypto currencies and security tokens.

Canton Zurich’s public prosecutor is assisting the Japanese authorities in an inquiry related to bank accounts associated with Carlos Ghosn, the former leading auto executive. Tokyo prosecutors sent a request for legal assistance to Switzerland in January, a spokesperson for the country’s Federal Office of Justice (FOJ) told swissinfo.ch.

One of the most popular destinations in Switzerland is reviewing its tourism strategy and mulling introducing coach fees in a bid to curb traffic woes and other disruptions caused by the large number of tourists it welcomes.

The Swiss Federal Court is to decide on Friday whether Swiss bank UBS should handover data on its French clients to Paris tax authorities as part of a crackdown on suspected tax evasion. The decision has been described as key for Swiss banking circles.

The expatriate Swiss community has been attending the once-in-a-lifetime Fête des Vignerons, currently taking place on the shores of Lake Geneva. A delegation of Swiss citizens living across the world, including leading members of the Organisation of the Swiss Abroadexternal link (OSA), gathered in Vevey to participate in the event on Thursday.

The hottest day of the year in Switzerland caused a headache for the Swiss Federal Railways. Track damage occurred on Wednesday in the Zurich Oberland, canton Aargau near Brugg and in the Geneva area. Railways spokesman Raffael Hirt confirmed that lines had been interrupted in Zurich between Pfäffikon and Wetzikon and in Aargau between Wildegg and Brugg.

2018, 7% of Switzerland’s workforce claimed they would like to work more. Women are the most affected. According to the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) figures publsihed on Tuesday, Switzerland’s labour pool has 830,000 people. This includes 356,000 underemployed individuals, 231,000 unemployed and 243,000 people who are looking for work but not available to start immediately.

The director of Switzerland’s tourism marketing company has dismissed criticism that the country is overrun by Asian tourists. Martin Nydegger said concerns by the local population about too many tourists should be taken seriously. But the perception of overtourism was mistaken and potentially damaging.

Switzerland stands to lose up to CHF10 billion ($10.2 billion) as a consequence of attempts by other countries to change how multinationals are taxed. Countries belonging to the G20 and OECD are pushing for changes in corporate taxation rules to capture a larger share of taxes of multinationals based in tax-friendly destinations like Switzerland.

The United States Senate on Wednesday ratified a double-taxation agreement (DTA) with Switzerland, ending years of stalemate. The agreement, which required two-thirds of votes, was accepted by a large majority, according to the US Senate website.

Around 320,000 jobs in Switzerland are considered low paid, earning a gross monthly salary of under CHF4,335 ($4,400), according to the most recent nationwide statistics. In 2016, 12% of Swiss workers earned such a low monthly salary, the Federal Statistical Office (OFS) reported on Monday.

Despite an increase in the use of biofuels and electric vehicles, fuel-related carbon dioxide emissions remained unchanged in 2018 in the country. The stagnation was due to the increase in road traffic. Owing to a rise in the average number of kilometres Swiss residents travelled last year, as well as growth in higher-emissions passenger vehicles – mainly four-wheel drives – fuel-related CO2 emissions in 2017 were still 3.3% above their 1990 level, the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN) reported on Tuesday.

The Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) is selling its old locomotives on the Internet. Control cars, rails, switches and a firefighting train with a CHF1 million ($1 million) price tag are among the vintage vehicles on sale. You will be hard pressed to find anything for less than CHF25,000 on SBBresale.ch, according to the Sunday editions of the German-language Blick newspaper and French-language Le Matin.

The Swiss competition commission (COMCO) has fined eight car leasing firms a total of CHF30 million ($30.4 million) for having swapped information on rates. The fines were announced on Thursday and come after some years of regular and systematic information exchanges between the companies on interest rates, COMCO announced.

Retiring baby-boomers and a shifting job market could mean a shortfall of up to 500,000 workers in Switzerland over the next decade, UBS forecasts. The bank proposes plugging the hole not only by immigration, but also by boosting more old and female workers. Basing its projections on long-term employment statistics, the bank says that the number of jobs to be filled could be anywhere between 300,000 and 500,000 over the next decade.

The amount of Swiss CHF1,000 notes that are hoarded rather than being used in the economy for payments could be as high as 87%, a study by the Swiss National Bank (SNB) has shown. The report, “Demand for Swiss banknotes: some new evidence”, estimates the volume of Swiss banknotes being stashed – rather than spent or invested – over the period 1950-2017.

After seven years of growth, both the number of high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) around the world and their total wealth declined in 2018, according to the latest World Wealth Report by consultants Capgemini. This trend was also seen in Switzerland.

The international TGV rail link between Geneva and France, which had been affected by the hot weather, has been repaired. Trains have been running since 5am on Sunday. Hot weather had buckled the tracks at La Plaine in canton Geneva, requiring repair work on Saturday, the Swiss Federal Railways said on Sunday.

The Office of the Attorney General has closed an investigation into events surrounding the Zug-based asset manager Quantum Global and its founder Jean-Claude Bastos, the firm says. Bastos has been in the spotlight over ties to Angola’s sovereign wealth fund.

For the third year running, newly registered cars in Switzerland have failed to meet the national CO2 emissions target, largely due to the growth in the number of 4x4s and fall in diesel cars, the Federal Office of Energy has warned.

The Swiss government plans to incrementally increase the retirement age of women to 65 while offering incentives for all people to work longer. The CHF2.8 billion ($2.84 billion) savings measures would be accompanied by a sales tax hike and extra pension payments for hardship cases.

Venture capital investment in Swiss start-ups doubled during the first half of 2019 to exceed CHF1 billion ($1.01 billion). After record investment in 2018, the venture capital market has stayed strong in 2019, according to data published on Tuesday by Swiss company Venturelab.

The Schaffhausen Cantonal Bank has settled a tax evasion dispute with the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia with a €3.9 million (CHF4.3 million) payment. The penalty clears the bank for all damages in Germany.

Commodity trader Vitol has taken the top spot in the ranking of the largest companies in Switzerland by total turnover, relegating Zug-based Glencore to second place. According to the rankingexternal link published in the Handelszeitung on Thursday, in 2018 Vitol boasted growth of 26.8% for a total turnover of CHF226 billion ($231 billion) compared to Glencore’s CHF215 billion.

The Swiss government wants to revamp the laws against money laundering so that lawyers, notaries and other advisors are required to comply with due diligence obligations.  The Federal Council (executive body) proposed on Wednesday a set of legal amendments to meet international standards in the fight against money laundering and terrorism financing. 

Swiss commercial banks achieved higher profits last year, mortgage loans tipped the CHF1 trillion ($1.02 trillion) mark and costs were saved by reducing headcounts. These are the findings of an annual report from the Swiss National bank (SNB).

Large wage gaps continue by gender and within Switzerland’s largest 26 firms, according to two new surveys. According to the Federal Office for Statistics, the median gross salary of male full-time employees in Switzerland stood at CHF85,200 ($87,276) last year, while for full-time female employees it was CHF71,500 – a 19% pay gap.

Swiss seniors are much more likely to be overweight that other age categories, new statistics from the Federal Office for Public Health (FOPH) show. Some 53% of over-65-year-olds have a body mass index judged to be too high (over 25 on the BMI scale), according to the statistics released on Tuesday by the FOPH.

A Swiss consumer protection organisation has filed a complaint against Swiss tennis star Roger Federer and several other celebrity “influencers”, accusing them of “stealth advertising” on Instagram and other social media sites.

The salaries of top managers at Swiss government-affiliated companies shrank last year due to smaller bonuses, according to a federal report published on Friday. Top state earner, Andreas Meyer, head of Swiss Federal Railways, saw his earnings fall below CHF1 million for the first time: down to CHF987,442 ($1 million) from CHF1,007,000 in 2017, the report found.

The Swiss finance ministry has reaffirmed that it is ready to ban stock exchanges in the European Union from trading Swiss shares – in a worsening row with Brussels over the future of bilateral relations. “In the event of stock market equivalence not being extended, the finance ministry will activate this protective measure. [….] Consequently, trading venues in the EU would lose recognition,” the ministry said on Monday.

Online shopping accounts for an ever bigger slice of the Swiss retail market as shopping via smartphone also becomes more popular with consumers, says a new report. Last year, Swiss consumers placed online orders worth a total of almost CHF 10 billion ($10 billion), according to the “E-Commerce Report 2019” published on Thursday. This represents an increase of 10 percent compared with the previous year.

Switzerland is home to the fourth-largest number of dollar millionaire households, according to a report by the Boston Consultancy Group (BCG). Worldwide, the number of such millionaires continues to rise. There are now some 500,000 millionaire households in Switzerland, BCG said, putting the Swiss in fourth place behind the US (around 15 million), China (1.3 million), and Japan (1.1 million).

Around 30% of young adults in Switzerland have faced financial difficulties, according to data from the Young Adult Survey Switzerland (YASS). The survey, which questions some 70,000 19-year-olds around the country every four years, aims to gain an “empiric and interdisciplinary insight” into the “educational biographies, living conditions and social and political orientations” of young Swiss adults.

United States engineering giant General Electric has revealed it will cut a further 450 jobs at two of its Swiss sites. Since 2016, the company has already shed some 2,000 workers. The company, which generated profits of $954 million (CHF952 million) last year, blamed the latest cuts on “financially challenging conditions”. But its GE Power division reported an operating loss of nearly $1 billion globally.

Swiss gold refinery Metalor Technologies has announced it will no longer deal with artisanal mining operations. The company cites the increasing cost of ensuring that gold is being produced by small mines in compliance with human rights and environmental standards. Metalor has come under repeated fire for doing business with gold mines in South America that care neither for their workers or surrounding habitat.

Switzerland’s third largest bank will limit the annual remuneration of top management to CHF1 million (around $1million) from July 1. The announcement was made at the bank’s general meeting on Saturday in Crans-Montana. CEO Heinz Huber’s compensation has already been adjusted when he took up his duties in January.

The cost of health insurance in Switzerland is expected to rise 3% both this year and next, warns the umbrella group for health insurers, Santésuisse. This is way above the forecast rise in consumer goods prices of 0.9% for 2019.

Saab’s Gripen E fighter jet will not participate in tests this month in Switzerland, the Swedish company said on Thursday. This follows a recommendation by the Swiss defence procurement agency (armasuisse). “The Gripen E development plan does not match the Swiss plan to perform flight tests with aircraft that are operationally ready in 2019,” Saab said in a statement.

The State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) is expecting the Swiss economy to grow by +1.2% in 2019, it said on Thursday. It revised its economic forecast upwards slightly from +1.1% in March, following 0.6% growth in the first quarter thanks to vigorous domestic demand.

The Swiss Competition Commission (COMCO) has fined five international banks for their involvement in the formation of cartels that manipulated the foreign exchange market. COMCO fined Barclays, Citigroup, JPMorgan, the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and the MUFG Bank a total of CHF90 million ($90.6 million) for “anti-competitive arrangements between banks in foreign exchange spot trading”.

Consumption of single-use plastic bags in some 30 Swiss food retailers has dropped 86% since they introduced a small charge in 2016. The charge of CHF0.05 (an American nickel) per bag was introduced voluntarily under a sectoral agreement in response to a parliamentary move that would have banned single-use plastic bags.

The number of packages processed by the Swiss Post office’s three parcel centres has been rising steadily since they opened 20 years ago. During that time, the centres in Härkingen, Daillens and Frauenfeld have handled more than 3.1 billion packages.

COMCO, the Swiss Competition Commission, is to intensify its investigation of telecoms operator Sunrise’s takeover of UPC Switzerland, amid fears that the move could create positions of market dominance in several areas.

Last year 768 farmers in Switzerland called it quits, while others increased their livestock numbers and production of organic food. Figures released this week by the Swiss Federal Statistical Officeexternal link revealed a 1.5% drop in the number of farms, bringing the total down to 50,852. However, the number of certified organic farms rose by about 400 to 7,032.

Switzerland is one of the most attractive locations for highly qualified foreign workers, according to a new study by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). In a ranking of 35 countries presented on Wednesday, Switzerland comes third behind Australia and Sweden as an attractive destination for skilled workers with a Masters degree or doctorate.

Switzerland is Europe’s most competitive nation, coming fourth in the annual global ranking of the Lausanne-based IMD business school. The small Alpine nation climbed from fifth to fourth place in the 63-country competitiveness ranking. It was helped by economic growth, the stability of the Swiss franc and high-quality infrastructure, IMD said on Tuesday.

In a comparison of European solar and wind power generation, Switzerland ranks near the bottom. Per year and inhabitant, Switzerland produces 250 kilowatt hours of solar (236kWh) and wind (14kWh) power – the amount needed to power a dishwasher, roughly. This puts Switzerland in 25th place when compared with the 28 European Union nations, according to a study published by the Swiss Energy Foundation (SES) on Wednesday.

The Swiss Federal Railways has started testing free mobile internet based on 3G/4G coverage on the main train routes. However, it does not cover all Swiss operators. The state-owned company has started testing the service on 44 Intercity trains between Zurich and Geneva, St Gallen and Lausanne, and from Basel to Biel, the federal railways announced on Tuesday in a statementexternal link.

Swiss investigators have broken up a Chinese industrial spying scheme that stole hundreds of sensitive documents from a technology company in Switzerland, reports the SonntagsZeitung newspaper. Prosecutors confirmed that a technician was fined for his part in the affair.

Federal authorities are stepping up efforts to prevent the sale of Swiss machinery that could be used to develop nuclear weapons. The latest interventions concern direct sales to the US and France. According to reports by the German-language newspaper NZZ am Sonntag, the federal export group halted the export of suspicious machinery to the US two times last year.

Swiss consumers pay a “high price island” premium of up to 245% for magazines and clothing compared to prices being charged for the same goods in neighbouring countries. A consumer group study found the price differential to be higher in Italy and France than in Germany. For many people living in Switzerland the findings of the Swiss Alliance of Consumer Associations, together with watchdogs in the French and Italian-speaking regions of the country, will come as no surprise. In fact, they confirm the findings of similar studies going back to 2012.

The image of Swiss banks has returned for the first time to pre-financial crisis levels, according to a survey by the Swiss Bankers Association (SBA). Cybercrime remains a concern, however. “The banks’ positive image is the result of a combination of their commercial success and social responsibility, and the respondents’ positive experiences with them in everyday life,” the SBA said in a statement on Wednesday.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has revised its growth forecasts for Switzerland downwards for the next two years due to a global economic slowdown. After a strong 2018 (+2.5%), gross domestic product (GDP) growth should slow in 2019 (+1%), the OECD said on Tuesday. This compares to its earlier forecast last November of +1.6%.

As of June 1, Switzerland’s largest bank will stop paying interest on adult savings accounts. Funds deposited in UBS savings accounts currently earn a rate of 0.01%, just like at Credit Suisse, the other major Swiss bank. Almost all other Swiss banks pay a small interest on saving accounts with the average amounting to 0.07%.

For the first time, all of Switzerland’s top 20 companies have at least one woman in the boardroom. The finding by consultancy firm Russell Reynolds shows the slow but steady progress towards gender equality in the management of Swiss firms.

Swiss voters largely accepted on Sunday a reform of the corporate tax system that will scrap preferential treatment for multinational firms. The result also means a financial boost for the country’s ailing pension system. Two years after voters rejected a similar idea to overhaul corporate tax rules, the issue – this time linked controversially to pensions – received a clear thumbs-up.

Employees who are active in trade unions are not sufficiently protected from being sacked in Switzerland, according to the International Labour Organization (ILO). The Geneva-based body has added Switzerland to a blacklist – just before a centenary conference in the Swiss city. The list comprises 40 countries that violate ILO conventions. Together with Greece and Belarus, Switzerland is the only European country to feature.

The Federal Council has changed its approach to buying new combat aircraft and anti-aircraft missiles. Swiss voters will now be able to have a say only on the fighter jets, on which the government wants to spend no more than CHF6 billion ($5.95 billion). It has asked the defence ministry to present a planning decision no later than the beginning of September.

The government has announced measures to help Swiss-based workers have better access to the job market. Plans to help older people out of a job are also outlined. The measures, outlined on Wednesday by interior minister Alain Berset and justice minister Karin Keller-Sutter, are part of efforts to adapt to an ageing workforce and to new rules forcing employers to give priority to Swiss-based workers.

Unusually warm and dry weather conditions have been credited with boosting bicycle sales last year – with a greater proportion of cyclists opting to ease muscle strain with the assistance of e-bikes in Switzerland’s mountainous terrain. On Tuesday, the cycling enthusiasts group dynaMot added more detail to figures put out by the Swiss Bicycle Suppliers Association in March.

Nestle is planning to restructure its operations in the Swiss city of Basel. Up to 100 jobs are threatened by cuts or moving production abroad. Some 177 people are employed at Nestlé’s Basel plant, 100 of which could be under threat over the next 18 months, the Swiss food giant announced on Thursday.

Family apartments in Geneva are the most expensive to rent, while those in St Gallen in the east of the country are the cheapest, according to a survey of the ten biggest Swiss cities. The median monthly rent for a 4.5-room apartment (100-110 square metres) in St Gallen costs CHF2,004 ($1,971), according to a survey published on Thursday by the price comparison website Comparis.

Swiss teachers are still working too much unpaid overtime, particularly in German-speaking Switzerland, according to a new survey by two major teachers’ associations. “Swiss teachers have the highest number of working hours of all OECD countries and work unpaid overtime for hundreds of millions of francs,” denounced Beat Zemp, president of the Swiss Teachers’ Association (LCH).

Opponents of restrictions on gun ownership in Switzerland have not been able to win substantial additional support over the past months, according to an opinion poll ahead of a nationwide vote on May 19. The No camp lags more than 30 percentage points behind the supporters, a survey published by the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation on Wednesday as found.

The Federal Customs Administration seized 3,203 shipments of illegally imported medicines in 2018 – triple the amount of the previous year. Erectile stimulants remain at the top of the list of illegally imported substances, the Swiss Agency for Therapeutic Products (Swissmedic) said on Thursday.

Four suspects have been sentenced in a major corruption case involving a unit of the Swiss economics ministry. But the main defendant is still awaiting a formal indictment. The Office of the Attorney General (OAG) announced on Wednesday that a trustee was given a suspended six-month prison sentence and three external IT managers were ordered to pay fines for offering material contributions and gifts of up to CHF100,000 ($100,000) to a senior employee of the State Secretariat of Economic Affairs (SECO).

The lawyer representing about 500 people in Switzerland who have filed a complaint against German carmaker Volkswagen and importer AMAG says the Swiss attorney general is dragging his feet in the so-called ‘Dieselgate’ case. Geneva lawyer Jacques Roulet formally wrote a letter to the Swiss justice minister, Karin Keller-Sutter, complaining about the alleged delays “in a case of national importance,” according to news agency Keystone-SDA.

Swiss President Ueli Maurer has been received by the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, for a state visit at the end of a week-long visit to China. The talks on Monday focused on strengthening relations, notably on economic and finance matters, according to a government statement.

Over one-third of all asylum seekers and refugees in Switzerland are currently employed, according to State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) figures. But most of the jobs are precarious and the vast majority continue to receive state benefits. In one year, the employment rate for asylum seekers in Switzerland rose from 27% in March 2018 to 32% today, according to a report by the Ostschweiz and Zentralschweiz am Sonntag newspapers that cite recent SEM data.

Foreign Affairs Minister Ignazio Cassis, currently visiting Chile, has hailed education ties as he visited the country’s Swiss school abroad, the Colegio Suizo. The school, the oldest Swiss school abroad in South America and the only official Swiss school abroad in Chile, is celebrating its 80th anniversary this year.

The number of people working in Switzerland is on the rise. Meanwhile, part-time work is much more widespread in Switzerland than in the rest of Europe. In Switzerland, 84.2% of the population aged 15 to 64 had a job in 2018 – an increase of 2.9 percentage points since 2010. Within the European Union (EU), only Iceland has a higher level of employment.

Starting in 2020, the city of Geneva will prohibit the sale of disposable plastics at events as well as at sales points on public property – a year ahead of a similar EU ban. The new law will apply to kiosks, terraces, vending vans and ice cream parlours, as well as to all city-approved events held on public property. Banned products include plastic straws, cutlery, cups and other disposable containers, which are generally difficult to recycle in Switzerland.

Long queues have been reported at the Gotthard tunnel in central Switzerland as holidaymakers head south for the Easter break. The traffic jam at the northern end of the tunnel stands at 12 kilometres, with a wait of almost two hours, the Touring Club of Switzerlandexternal link (TCS) said on Friday morning.

The national railway operator, Swiss Federal Railways, has set up a taskforce to look into train punctuality – currently 90.1% – after the rate slipped slightly last year. News of the taskforce was broken by CH-Media groupexternal link and confirmed by the Federal Railwaysexternal link to the Swiss public broadcaster SRFexternal link. The group, made up of experienced management members, is to report back in six weeks’ time.

A United Nations representative is demanding action following reports that Swiss crop science company Syngenta is selling highly hazardous pesticides abroad. “There is an urgent need to end this exploitation of lower standards of protection. This is a morally and ethically unjustifiable situation,” Baskut Tuncak, United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights and toxics, told Swiss NGO Public Eye on Wednesday.

Swiss bank Credit Suisse has agreed with Founder Securities to increase its shareholding to a majority stake in its Beijing-based Credit Suisse Founder Securities (CSFS) joint venture. As a result of the agreement, Credit Suisse’s shareholding is expected to increase from 33.3% to 51% by way of capital injection. The shareholding of Founder Securities in CSFS will reduce to 49%.

Pay-outs by Switzerland’s main state pension plan, which comprises old age insurance and other schemes, far exceeded income last year. Overall, the old age pension scheme recorded a deficit of CHF2.2 billion ($2.2 billion) in 2018 compared with a surplus of CHF1.1 billion the previous year, according to compenswiss, the Federal Social Security Funds.

Obstacles to implementation of a revised double-taxation agreement between Switzerland and the United States may soon be removed, according to Swiss president and finance minister Ueli Maurer. Maurer was speaking after a meeting with US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Saturday in Washington, where he is attending the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank.

The start of the Easter holidays in many Swiss cantons is causing long tailbacks at the Gotthard tunnel in central Switzerland, with waits of more than two hours at the northern end. Just before midday on Saturday, the traffic queue to enter the tunnel going south stretched for 14 kilometres, according to the Touring Club of Switzerland (TCS). There was also a two-kilometre tailback at the southern end.

Telecoms operator Swisscom says it plans to cover 90% of Switzerland with “5G” fifth-generation mobile communications by the end of this year. “As soon as we have the concession for the new mobile frequencies, we will activate our networks,” Swisscom director Urs Schaeppi told the media on Wednesday. The networks were put in place in partnership with Swedish telecoms company Ericsson.

An investigative report by a group of Swiss newspapers has revealed the extent to which pharmaceutical companies are funding hospitals, doctors, and medical centres in the country. CHF458 million ($456.5 million): this was the amount paid by the 60 pharma companies based in Switzerland to various arms of the medical profession between 2015 and 2017, according to a report by the Beobachter, Handelszeitung, Blick, and Le Temps newspapers.

Last year saw a record number of bankruptcy procedures opened in Switzerland, with almost 14,000 cases involving bust businesses and individuals. The record numbers, released on Thursday by the Federal Statistical Office, mark a 5.4% increase on 2017 and translate to overall financial losses of some CHF2 billion ($2 billion).

Global financial institutions are increasingly dominating the shareholders of major Swiss companies, according to the Sunday editionexternal link of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ). The German-language newspaper points to Swiss banking giant Credit Swiss as a prime example of a financial institution where traditional shareholder democracy is eroding fast.

Switzerland attracted 282 foreign firms to set up shop in the alpine state, creating 899 jobs last year, according to cantonal economic chiefs. That’s an increase of 37 companies from 2017. Switzerland is in the throes of revamping its corporate tax system to keep it line with the competition rules of the European Union and Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Switzerland’s third-largest bank says it will cut up to 200 jobs to save CHF100 million ($100 million) this year. Raiffeisen is reorganising and undertaking a cost-cutting programme. This follows a recent fraud allegation scandal involving its former chief executive.

The leftwing Young Socialist group has handed in the necessary signatures to force a nationwide vote on its proposal to increase tax on capital revenue in Switzerland. The initiative intends to tax dividends and interest on wealth by a factor of 1.5 compared with regular income tax.

The Swiss economy is likely to slow in 2019, with gross domestic product growth expected to hit 1.1%, followed by a “moderate” recovery in 2020, the International Monetary Fund said on Monday. The IMF said in a concluding statement, published on Monday following a mission to Switzerland and an annual evaluation, that a “sustained regional slowdown, intensification of global trade tensions and a disruptive Brexit” would adversely affect the Swiss economy.

Swiss railway vehicle manufacturer Stadler Rail has won a $600 million (CHF597 million) order in the United States. The Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTAexternal link) on Friday announced its decision to award Stadlerexternal link the contract for 127 Metro (underground) trains with two options of 25 additional trains each.

The number of Swiss Abroad citizens grew by 1.1% to reach 760,200 at the end of last year. Most live in neighbouring countries and in the United States.The expatriate community accounts for 10.6% of the total number of Swiss nationals, according to official statistics published on Thursday. Nearly three-quarters of the Swiss Abroad have dual nationality.

A significant increase in vacant homes is predicted by Zurich Cantonal Bank. Suburbs are particularly prone to lower occupancy levels. The problem of empty housing, particularly in the urban periphery, is likely to worsen, with construction activity concentrated in areas with already high vacancy rates. Last year around 59,700 homes did not have any tenants.

Worsening international conditions will have a negative impact on Switzerland’s export-driven economy, prompting the Swiss Economic Institute (KOF) to lower its forecast for this year. KOF on Wednesday announced it had revised its growth forecast down from 1.6% to 1% for Switzerland’s gross domestic product. However, the latest outlook for 2020 remains virtually unchanged with growth of 2.1%.

Foreign visitors spent 6.4% more on Swiss Travel System tickets in 2018 than in the previous year. Sales rose to over CHF130 million ($131 million). 2018 is thus the sixth record year in a row, the Swiss Federal Railways said on Tuesday. Chinese guests were the top foreign users of public transport, with sales of CHF20.3 million, an increase of 14.9%.

An investigation by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) has revealed the that Zug-based cryptocurrency venture Envion unlawfully received deposits from at least 37,000 investors. Envion unlawfully accepted over CHF90 million ($90.5 million) in its Initial Coin Offering (ICO) without the necessary statutory licence, according to a statement by FINMAexternal link on Wednesday.

A second error in the Swiss Post planned e-voting system has been discovered as the public intrusion test phase comes to an end. The Federal Chancellery announced the need for action and confirmed a review of the e-voting certification and approval process. The same computer experts who discovered a critical error in the source code of Swiss Post’s new e-voting system earlier this month announced they discovered a further security gap.

Tens of thousands of people across Europe, including in the Swiss city of Zurich, staged protests on Saturday against the European Union’s planned copyright reform bill. More than 1,000 demonstrators marched in the northeastern Switzerland against the copyright reforms which critics fear threaten freedom of speech, according to the Keystone-SDA news agency.

The Swiss government has dropped the requirement that British nationals obtain a visa to enter Switzerland for a lengthy stay after Britain leaves the European Union. The British government has also extended the same privilege to Swiss nationals wishing to enter Britain after Brexit.

Patients will not have to pay out extra money for health services before the health insurance covers the costs, after parliament surprisingly threw out the controversial proposal on Friday. In a previous decision earlier this month, parliament had agreed to increase the deductible paid by patients to CHF350 ($350) annually under certain conditions.

As the Brexit saga continues, Swiss companies are preparing for the worst and hoping for the best. But optimism is waning among companies that are trying to minimise disruptions from any deal/no-deal scenarios. With the UK’s departure from the EU scheduled for March 29, British Prime Minister Theresa May on Wednesday asked the EU bloc to postpone the UK’s departure until June 30.

Switzerland’s federal technology institutes have launched a new Masters degree in cyber-security as part of an effort to play a leading role in studying the protection of computers and networks. The two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology, Lausanne’s EPFL and Zurich’s ETH, already offer “world-class training in the fields of computing and information technology,” said education and research minister Guy Parmelin at the announcement of the new Master in Cyber-security.

Switzerland must make its financial centre more sustainable and transparent to ensure it doesn’t lose access to the European market, according to a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers seen by Swiss public radio, RTS. This conclusion was part of an assessment carried out by the consulting firm and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), which analysed the consequences of the European Union’s action plan on financing sustainable growth, due to be presented to the European Parliament next autumn.

Switzerland should only make another billion-franc “cohesion” payment to the European Union if the EU doesn’t discriminate against Switzerland, parliament has agreed. The House of Representatives on Monday approved the CHF1.3 billion ($1.3 billion) that will help reduce the economic and social inequalities between old and new EU countries over the next decade.

The US has expressed concern over the use of Chinese technology in Switzerland, suggesting it may be used for espionage, reports the Sonntagszeitung newspaper. Sonntagszeitung cited the Swiss foreign ministry as saying that the US embassy in Bern had conducted “an exchange of views on this subject at diplomatic level.”

The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) has temporarily suspended payments to a civil society platform on migration issues. Financial conflicts of interest and accusations of pro-migration bias are being investigated. On Thursday, the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) confirmed that the Swiss Civil Society Platform on Migration and Development will not be receiving any further funds.

Swiss bank UBS has been fined HK$375 million (CHF48 million) for irregularities involving three IPOs it had help list on the Hong Kong stock exchange in 2009. Its licence to sponsor IPOs in the city was also suspended for one year.

The Federal Administrative Court has upheld a decision by Swiss customs to tax legal marijuana leaves to the same extent as tobacco. In its decision published on Wednesday, the St Gallen court said that “fake” marijuana – i.e. cannabis containing less than 1% tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) – was sold primarily to be smoked, and therefore should be taxed similarly to tobacco.

Swiss railway companies should introduce a third-class category for passengers on a budget, a report commissioned by the Federal Office of Transport has recommended. The NZZ am Sonntag newspaper said on Sunday that a recent federal government report, commissioned by an external expert group, had recommended introducing “third class aircraft-style seating for maximum capacity at favourable prices”.

The Swiss government has awarded concessions to five companies to set up additional electric charging stations at 100 rest areas along the country’s motorways. The decision, announced by the Federal Roads Office on Thursday, is part of government plans to boost e-transport.

The Geneva International Motor Show opens this week amid growing concerns about the impact of Brexit on car manufacturers in the UK and across Europe. Experts expect that a no-deal Brexit could lead to sudden tariffs that could disrupt the auto industry supply chain. With three weeks left until UK’s planned exit from the EU, some car manufacturers see the annual Geneva motor show as an opportunity to warn against a no-deal separation while solidifying plans to cope with disruptions, according to Keystone-SDA.

Switzerland’s highest court has dismissed a legal complaint by a consumer group against Amag, an importer of German Volkswagen diesel cars into Switzerland, linked to the emissions-rigging scandal. The Federal Court rejected an appeal by the SKS consumer group, stating that it had no case against VW and Amag; SKS claimed that they had misled car buyers and violated Swiss law.

After some years of steady but low growth, the Swiss economy expanded by 2.5% in 2018 on the back of a positive global situation. The figures, released on Thursday by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), showed growth last year that was a hair below expected (+2.6%) but which still marked a jump from 2017 figures (+1.6%).

Swiss companies last year exported government-approved war materiel to 64 countries with a total value of CHF510 million ($510 million), 14% more than the previous year. Germany was the largest customer, taking deliveries worth CHF118 million, followed by Denmark, the US, Romania and Italy, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) said on Tuesday.

The number of overnight stays in Swiss hotels increased by 3.8% last year to 38.8 million. Domestic tourism also registered a rise with 17.7 million stays by Swiss guests – up 2.7% on the previous year – Switzerland Tourism said at its annual press conference on Tuesday. It also welcomed the 3.7% increase in European guests but added that in mountain regions this figure was still down 43% on 2008.

The number of people drawing on Swiss unemployment benefits while searching for a job in the European Union has risen sharply in the last five years. Foreigners returning home make up the largest share, according to government data analysed by SonntagsBlick.

The number of cross-border workers in Switzerland – except those from France – has dropped for the second consecutive quarter. This marks the second year-on-year decline by quarter in 20 years. According to numbers released by the Federal Statistical Office on Thursday, the fourth quarter of 2018 saw 2,000 fewer people commuting to Switzerland to work compared to the same period the year before.

A French court on Wednesday found Swiss bank UBS guilty of illicit solicitation and laundering of the proceeds of tax fraud, imposing a hefty fine of €3.7 billion (CHF4.2 billion). The bank was convicted of illegally helping wealthy French clients evade tax authorities in France. UBS, its French subsidiary and three of its former executives have also been ordered to pay civil damages of €800,000.

The Swiss government has launched its campaign in favour of the upcoming national vote on a reform of the corporate tax and pension systems. Ministers for health and finance, Alain Berset and Ueli Maurer, presented their case at a press conference on Monday, urging citizens to vote ‘yes’ on May 19.

Car systems manufacturer Wabco Automotive has opted to move its global headquarters from Brussels to the Swiss capital, Bern. The company has plans to set up a competence centre in autonomous driving in collaboration with Swiss universities. “Switzerland is world-renowned for providing a highly favorable environment for breakthrough innovations and offers many distinct advantages for corporate headquarters,” said chairman and CEO Jacques Esculier in a statement on Friday.

The BLS train company, which operates several routes in the regions around Bern, is to cut some 170 positions over the coming four years, for reasons of efficiency and automation. In a move criticized on Thursday by rail unions, BLS announced the cuts as part of planned efficiency gains that aim to save between CHF50-60 million ($49.8-59.2 million) by 2023.

Pressure is growing on global commodity trading firms with strong ties to Switzerland for their alleged involvement in the “Car Wash” corruption scandal in Brazil. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating two Vitol executives in the Americas, according to Reuters news agency.

Switzerland’s reputation as a place to do business took a serious hit last year following various scandals, from corporate bank fraud to illegal subsidies. The Swiss Economy Reputation Index 2018external link, published on Tuesday by Basel-based consultancy Commslab and the fög research institute at the University of Zurich, dropped for the fifth consecutive quarter, reaching its lowest level since July 2014.

Switzerland’s attorney general has opened an investigation into a corruption case involving Venezuela, according to a weekend report published by Schweiz am Wochenende. The Latin American nation is in the grips of a major political, economic and social crisis. According to the prosecutor’s statement to the weekly, proceedings were initiated at the end of 2017 against unknown persons “in the context of the events in Venezuela”.

Trains operated by the state-owned Swiss national railway operator are less punctual than company statistics make believe. A private website, launched in 2017 and compiled from data provided by the transport ministry, found that on average one in six intercity trains – or just under 84% – operated by the Federal Railways is late. That is, it arrives at its destination with a delay of at least three minutes.

The Swiss government has raised CHF380 million ($379 million) from auctioning fifth-generation (5G) mobile radio frequencies, it said on Friday. The three Swiss main providers, Swisscom, Sunrise Communications and privately owned Salt, each received part of the spectrum after newcomer Dense Air dropped out of the bidding.

Start-ups and innovative small and medium-sized businesses are to be encouraged to stay in Switzerland thanks to a new fund of up to CHF500 million ($499 million). The initiative, from Swiss Entrepreneurs Foundation (SwissEF) and launched on Thursday, has the backing of some heavy hitters in the business world, including insurer Mobiliar and banks UBS and Credit Suisse.

Switzerland’s Sunrise Communications Group has confirmed it is in talks to buy Liberty Global’s cable operator UPC Switzerland. The company said in a statement on Tuesday: “Sunrise confirms it is in discussions with Liberty Global regarding a possible acquisition of UPC Schweiz. Sunrise will only pursue a transaction that is strategically compelling and demonstrably value creative for its shareholders.”

According to a consumer group, over 18 million unsolicited telephone calls are made every month in Switzerland. The SKS consumer group for German-speaking regions has addressed the problem of unsolicited phone calls in a letter sent to a Swiss parliamentary commission discussing the revision of the Swiss telecommunications law. A copy of the letter was recently published in Tamedia newspapers.

Overnight stays in Swiss Alpine resorts have increased for four consecutive seasons since winter 2016/17, with summer destinations doing better than winter destinations. Lucerne topped an international study of 145 resorts.

Swiss bicycle couriers have signed a ‘Europe-first’ collective bargaining agreement deal aimed at protecting them from cheaper rivals, such as the food delivery service Uber Eats. The courier employer’s association Swissmessengerlogistics (SML) negotiated the contract with the trade union Syndicom on Tuesday.

Swiss companies have sharply increased their lobbying in Brussels in the face of uncertain relations with the European Union. Switzerland has more companies lobbying in Brussels than many other European countries, writes the SonntagsBlick newspaper, citing the EU’s latest transparency register.

The European Union is imposing limits on steel coming into the bloc from Saturday in response to US President Donald Trump’s metals tariffs. The measures will also affect Swiss steel exports to the EU. The EU said on Friday that it is introducing new measures to prevent steel produced for the US market from flooding into Europe instead because of tariffs introduced by Trump.

The pay gap between men and women in Switzerland has increased slightly, amounting to hundreds of francs per month on average. Men earned 19.6% more pay than female colleagues in 2016, compared to a 19.5% difference in 2012. While some of this gap can be explained by length of service, additional qualifications and the like, in more than four out of ten cases researchers could see no reason why women are paid less.

Nine out of ten employees in Switzerland – or four million people total – commuted to work last year, most of them to another municipality, and most by car. In 2017, the average one-way Swiss commute was 15 kilometres (9.3 miles) and took 30.6 minutes, reported the Federal Statistical Officeexternal link on Tuesday.

Swiss pharmaceuticals giant Novartis says a no-deal Brexit could hurt patients and that it is stockpiling medicines in the UK to help ensure continuity of supply. In a press releaseexternal link on Friday, it said that after the British parliament’s rejection of Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal, “the risk of UK exiting the EU without a deal is increased and this will be hugely impactful for patients, particularly around the supply and safety of medicines”.

The Sino-Swiss free trade agreement (FTA) is having only a limited effect on the fight against fake watches, according to a Swiss official. Steps taken by Beijing to counter fraud are often not being enforced by courts.

Swiss President and Finance Minister Ueli Maurer has signed two agreements with the UK as part of the government’s strategy to maintain smooth ties after Brexit. The agreements on road transport and non-life insurance were signed with UK Chancellor Philip Hammond at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos on Friday, said the finance ministry.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Switzerland are optimistic about export business at the start of 2019, a new survey has found, with over half expecting foreign sales to grow during the year. “The export climate will remain favourable for Swiss SMEs in 2019,” wrote the authors of a Switzerland Global Enterprise and Credit Suisse survey published on Thursday.

Part-time work in Switzerland continues to increase, with the latest figures from the Federal Statistical Office showing that over a third of employees work less than 90%. The figures, said the statistical office on Thursdayexternal link, show a marked increase in part-time work over the past 20 years: from 26.3% to 36.7%.

The number of merger and acquisition deals involving Swiss companies hit a record high in 2018, according to a report by consultancy firm KPMG. Activity peaked in a number of sectors including financial services, consumer markets, technology, media and telecommunications, power and utilities, says KPMG. There were also a record number of private equity transactions.

The Swiss Federal Court has ruled that two Swiss companies do not have to compensate two employees who were paid in euros and who ended up with less than their franc-earning colleagues. Explaining its decision on Tuesday, the country’s highest court said the cross-border workers from Germany and France had agreed to a corresponding change to their contracts in 2011 – knowing what it meant for their salaries – and therefore any subsequent demands for compensation were unlawful.

By spring, the Italian government is expected to clarify its position on a new tax system for cross-border commuters between Italy and Switzerland. “It is a delicate issue that must be digested sufficiently, with both administrative and political evaluations. It takes time, but spring is not far away,” Italian Foreign Affairs Minister Enzo Moavero Milanesi told Swiss Foreign Affairs Minister Ignazio Cassis in Lugano in southern Switzerland on Monday.

The chief executive of the Swiss financial watchdog, Mark Branson, has called for the creation of a national cyber defence centre. In an interview with the SonntagsZeitung newspaper, Branson reiterated that Switzerland was lagging on safety standards behind other financial centres.

The Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie (SIHH) has opened in Geneva with 35 watch brands showing off their wares. SIHHexternal link will run until Thursday, when it is open to the public, who must register and pay CHF70 ($71.20) in advance. It is the first watch fair of the year and important in terms of setting trends, particularly in the luxury segment.

A Swiss aircraft manufacturer may have broken the law through part of a contract signed with Saudi Arabia. The foreign affairs ministry has begun a deeper investigation. Tasked with helping to maintain military training aircraft, 12 Pilatus employees are working in the Saudi capital, Riyadh. Swiss companies are legally obliged to report any activity with foreign armies.

The Swiss National Bank (SNB) says it expects to report a loss of about CHF15 billion ($15.3 billion) for 2018, mainly because of a weak performance of foreign currency positions. In a report on provisional annual calculations, the SNB said on Wednesday that the federal and cantonal authorities would nonetheless still benefit a CHF2 billion payment – two-thirds of which will go to the 26 cantons.

Swiss supermarket chain Coop is refusing to stock products from food producing giant Mars in a dispute over prices. The retailer is part of a European buying consortium whose other members will also boycott Mars, Twix and Bounty confectioneries. The dispute is over how much retailers must pay for the good they stock on their shelves.

The unemployment rate in Switzerland averaged 2.6% in 2018, a ten-year low, after strong economic growth in the first six months of the year, according to the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO). The department said just over 118,000 people were registered with regional job centres during 2018 – 17.5% fewer than the previous year.

The European Union should stop dictating terms to Switzerland and start negotiating an acceptable compromise if it wants to find agreement on future ties, says UBS chairman Axel Weber. In an interview with the Tages-Anzeiger newspaper, Weber said the current EU demands are unlikely to be approved by the Swiss people should they be put to a referendum.

One Swiss in two is satisfied with the state of their financial situation, according to a study. Just under a third (28%) expect their finances to improve in 2019. The French-speaking population is feeling much more positive than last year.

Ski resorts have reported a busy period over Christmas and the New Year with numerous visitors enjoying the sunny weather and good snow conditions. The chic resort of Verbier in canton Valais registered over 20,000 skiers a day over the Christmas period, Laurent Vaucher, director of the Téléverbier lift company, told Keystone SDA on Wednesday.

The European perch, or Perca fluviatilis, has been named the Fish of the Year for 2019. The Swiss Fishing Association said on Wednesday external linkthat it had chosen the perch to remind the public of its popularity, particularly as a culinary delicacy in Switzerland.

The Swiss-based food and drink multinational Nestlé is the most valuable European company, according to a new international survey. Nestlé edges out Royal Dutch Shell to move into 15th position worldwide – up three places with a stock market value of $252 billion (CHF250 billion), the annual report by the services company Ernst&Young found.

An overwhelming majority of people in Switzerland appear to be in favour of introducing a tax on plane tickets to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. An online poll, published by the SonntagsZeitung newspaper, showed that 70% of respondents said they were prepared to pay between CHF12 to CHF50 ($12.2-$50.8) towards a CO2 tax depending on the duration of a flight.

Switzerland was the most globalised country in the world, according to a 2016 survey by the KOF Swiss Economic Institute. It moved up one place to the top compared with the previous year. The Netherlands, Belgium. Sweden and Britain followed in the next places. The United States are in 23rd place and the Comoros, Afghanistan and Guinea-Bissau are bottom of the 195-country rankingexternal link, which was published on Thursday.

Switzerland’s largest industrial employer, the Association of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering Industries, has come out in favour of a controversial accord, covering relations with the European Union. Hans Hess, president of Swissmem, said the draft agreement was tailor-made for Switzerland.

The Swiss watchmaking industry expects a continuing rise in exports next year but is concerned that the United States’ protectionist trade policy could have a negative impact on the sector. Jean-Daniel Pasche, president of the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry, said the sector would record in 2018 the third consecutive year with growth, and the value of exports could exceed CHF21 billion ($21.2 billion).

Swiss Post sorted and delivered a record 1.4 million parcels a day in the week before Christmas, which can be attributed to the continued growth of online shopping. This compares with last year’s record of 1.3 million set on December 19, Swiss Post said on Boxing Day.

Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis has rejected criticism of the results of negotiations with the European Union about a framework accord, encompassing all aspects of political relations between Switzerland and the 28-nation bloc.

Some consumers in Switzerland and abroad have been questioning the halal label on Toblerone chocolate bars. Although certified as halal in April, it was only this week that a small storm began brewing on social media – with some people calling for boycotts of the chocolate produced by Mondelez in Bern.

The Swiss branch of the environmental organisation, WWF, has called on Swiss-based watch companies to take more responsibility for ecological and social impacts, notably the use of gold. In its reportexternal link analysing the 15 biggest watch brands, the WWF says its findings are highly worrying as most companies have done nothing to address and counter climate change.

More and more people in Switzerland are relying on their smartphone to shop, pay and transfer money, although, compared internationally, the Swiss are still cautious. The Global Mobile Consumer Survey 2018, published on Wednesday by consultants Deloitte, found that 92% of all adults in Switzerland own at least one smartphone, 5% own only a mobile phone and 3% own neither. Similar trends are seen globally.

Switzerland’s Competition Commission announced on Tuesday that Apple has agreed to come up with a more competitive technical solution to the benefit of Swiss payment method TWINT. The automatic activation of Apple Pay at payment terminals can interrupt payments made by the TWINT application, noted the commission.

A total of 52% of CEOs from the 50 firms on the SMI Expandedexternal link stock exchange are from abroad, according to a study published on Monday by the recruitment consultancy Heidrick & Strugglesexternal link. A year ago, when the profiles of Swiss executives were evaluated for the first time, the figure was 49%.

British Secretary of State for Transport Chris Grayling is set to sign an agreement with Switzerland on Monday to ensure air services continue to operate between the two countries after Brexit. Britain is due to leave the European Union on March 29, but uncertainty over how, or even if, Brexit will happen has increased the possibility of the country exiting without a deal on departure terms, a scenario that some companies said would usher in chaos.

A people’s initiative, allowing workers over 50 to sue for age discrimination, will be launched soon, the NZZ am Sonntag reported on Sunday. According to Heidi Joos, the CEO of Avenir 50 plus, one of the organisations behind the project, this proposed constitutional provision should allow employees to sue a company if they believe they have been dismissed for age-related reasons or if their application for employment has not been taken into account for the same reasons.

Switzerland’s workforce is in good shape but perhaps not for long, according to a new study by the consulting firm Deloitte. Tapping existing pools of talent including older workers and women are key to helping companies meet future demands for skilled labour.

The Swiss government says it wants to carry out a public consultation before taking a final position on an “institutional framework” agreement negotiated with the European Union aimed at cementing future ties between Switzerland and its biggest trading partner.

Switzerland’s existing mobile telephony infrastructure is enough to guarantee the safety of drone flights in the country’s airspace, according to a study published Wednesday. Commissioned by Swiss air navigation service provider Skyguide and carried out by the Aviation Research Center Switzerland (ARCS), the study focused on the possibility of using mobile networks to control drones.

As the Swiss financial centre adjusts to the loss of banking secrecy and possible fallout from Brexit, a report highlights increased investment management as the sector’s cornerstone. The report, released on Thursday by the Swiss Bankers Association (SBA) and the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), outlines the emergence of investment management – the “management of investments for institutional and private clients” – as a key component of the Swiss financial centre.

The Swiss Post is expanding its drone delivery system, transporting laboratory samples between two hospitals in Zurich. Similar pilots have been conducted in Bern and Lugano. On Tuesday, the Swiss Post announced it is launching a one-year pilot project to use drones to send laboratory samples between the University Hospital of Zurich and the Irchel site of the University of Zurich, which are 2.5 kilometres apart.

A Swiss complaint to the World Trade Organization (WTO) against United States import tariffs on aluminium and steel will be decided by a WTO panel. On Tuesday, the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) accepted to create separate panels to hear the complaints by Switzerland and India, after the two countries filed a second request for their cases to be heard.

Shoppers in Switzerland will no longer be able to buy items from the US Amazon website due to recent changes to Swiss value-added tax law. Exceptions will be made for e-books and apps. “From 26 December 2018 customers shopping on Amazon.com and other non-EU Amazon websites will not be able to ship non-digital orders to any shipping address in the Swiss Customs Union,” Amazon said on Monday.

An investigation by Swiss Public Television, SRF, has found that data isn’t sufficiently protected when customers use WiFi at cafes in Switzerland of the global coffee chain. Free WiFi access at Starbucks – one of the great perks offered by the company – was investigated by the SRF consumer programme “Kassensturzexternal link”.

An EU Commission document has revealed that, for now, not enough progress on the Swiss-EU framework agreement has been made to renew the ‘financial equivalency’ status of the Swiss stock exchange in Europe.

On average, heads of large Swiss corporations have suffered a marked drop in salary. In 2017, the median wage of the heads of 20 leading companies dropped by nearly 30%. According to the executive compensation report published by consulting firm PwCexternal link on Tuesday, the median salary of the heads of 20 firms in the leading SMI index fell from CHF7.7 million ($7.7 million) to CHF5.5 million.

The Swiss beer market recovered last year thanks to the hot weather, as well as the continued boom in microbreweries and thirst for local craft beers. The Swiss beer market grew by 1.8% to 469 million litres (124 million gallons) between October 1, 2017 and September 30, 2018. This follows a steady downward trend in beer drinking in recent years.

The Swiss love their coffee and knock back more than three cups per day. They came in third, behind Germans and Norwegians, in an international ranking of coffee consumers. The Swiss drank no less than 1100 cups of coffee per person per day, according to a ranking published on Monday by CafetierSuisseexternal link, a catering industry employer’s association.

Voters in canton Bern have rejected a proposal to lower corporate taxes, dealing a surprise blow to the government and parliament trying to give the canton a competitive edge. Nearly 54% of voters on Sunday came out against a planned lowering of tax rates for companies headquartered in the canton meeting certain criteria.

The Swiss Post Office has appointed a new chief executive to lead the state-owned company out of a troubled few months following a subsidies scandal that came to light earlier this year. Roberto Cirillo will take over at the helm next April, replacing interim boss Ulrich Hurni, the Swiss Post announced on Thursday. Hurni has been minding the fort since Susanne Ruoff was forced to quit as CEO in June.

Only 34% of Swiss people believe their jobs are not at risk from automation and machine learning, according to a survey commissioned by the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SBC). Almost half of the 2,092 people surveyed by the Link Institute for SBC felt that some of their daily tasks could be done by machines and algorithms, while 15% were convinced that robots could do much of their work.

Switzerland’s talent shortage is more pronounced in 2018, a new survey has found. Technical, financial, and medical professions are most affected, while job seekers in the hospitality, retail, and administrative sectors face the greatest competition.

Swiss households spend an average of 29% on mandatory payments like taxes, social contributions and health insurance. Figures released by the Swiss Statistical Office on Monday reveal that, based on 2016 data, a Swiss household had an average income of CHF7,124 ($7,140), of which CHF2,910 was eaten up by unavoidable expenses.

The pharmaceutical industry and insurance companies have overtaken banking as the best paid sectors in Switzerland, according to the NZZ am Sonntag. In 2016, bank executives took home an average gross salary of CHF220,000 ($220,394) per year, which is CHF 40,000 less than ten years ago.

The expenses of Swiss civil servants added up to CHF 121.7 million ($122 million) last year, according to the SonntagsBlick newspaper. Counting the 34,800 full-time positions in the federal administration in 2016, that level of spending amounts to almost CHF3,500 per civil servant.

Better at home than in a home: almost 350,000 people made use of assistance and home-care services (Spitex) last year, 10,000 more than in 2016. In contrast, the number of residents of old-age and nursing homes remained constant at 149,000, 15% of them for a short stay. Spitex, a Swiss non-profit organisation that provides in-home nursing services like changing bandages and administering medicine, chalked up nearly 16 million hours of home care and more than six million hours of assistance, according to figuresexternal link published on Thursday by the Federal Statistical Office.

The Swiss Competition Commission has searched the premises of Credit Suisse and UBS, PostFinance and the credit card companies Swisscard and Aduno for allegedly boycotting mobile payment methods such as Apple Pay and Samsung Pay. The Competition Commission said on Thursday it had opened an investigation on Tuesday.

The president of the Swiss insurance firm Visana, Urs Roth, committed suicide on Monday, the firm has announced. In recent years, several top Swiss executives have taken their lives. “It is with great sadness that we inform you about the death of our Chairman of the Executive Board, Mr. Urs Roth, who took his own life yesterday,” Visana said in a brief statement.

In Paris on Monday, several hundred governments and tech companies – and Switzerland – signed a new charter for trust and security online. In the so-called ‘Paris Call’, launched by French President Macron at the UNESCO Internet Governance Forum in Paris, signatories pledged to support “an open, safe, stable, accessible, and peaceful cyberspace” where international law applies, and individual rights are protected.

The suicide rate among Swiss farmers is almost 40% higher than the average for men in rural areas, a study has found. The main causes are fears about the future and financial worries. A survey by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), reported in the SonntagsZeitung, found that between 1991 and 2014, 447 Swiss farmers took their lives. 

Eighteen managers at the Swiss private bank PKB Privatbank are being investigated in Italy for fiscal fraud and money laundering, according to an Italian prosecutor. The Milan Public Prosecutor’s Office, led by Francesco Greco, is carrying out the investigation against the officials, who are residents in Italy where PKB owns the Italian private bank Cassa Lombarda.

UBS Group AG, Switzerland’s largest bank, says it will “vigorously” contest a United States Department of Justice lawsuit concerning mortgage-backed securities it sold in the run-up to the 2008 global financial crisis. In a statement issued on Wednesday, UBS said it had been advised that the DOJ intends to file a civil complaint as early as Thursday “related to UBS’s issuance, underwriting and sale of residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) more than a decade ago”.

The Swiss franc, investment in arms, and the housing market were some of the issues the government discussed with the chairman of the Swiss National Bank. SNB chairman Thomas Jordan told the government that he sees the Swiss currency as highly valued and warned of the continuing risks of bubbles in the housing market.

Plans have been presented to upgrade a popular tourist destination on a mountain top in central Switzerland. As part of the CHF100 million ($100 million) project on the Titlis, a building made of steel and glass will be added to the existing tower for technical installations on 3,028 metres (9,934 feet) altitude.

Construction workers have continued their protests against worsening labour conditions in Switzerland. An estimated 4,000 people took to the streets of Lausanne on Monday in the latest stage of a series of short regional strikes underway since mid-October.

There will be an average drop of almost 20% in the price of 288 medicines from December 1, the Federal Office of Public Health says. Savings of around CHF100 million ($100 million) are expected. The move comes at a time of debate over the high costs of medicines in Switzerland.

The State Secretary for International Finance, Jörg Gasser, is to step down in February after three years in office. It was Gasser’s decision to leave the post, according to a statement by the finance ministry on Wednesday.

Following strikes in Ticino and Geneva earlier this month, 1,500 construction workers have continued the protest in French-speaking Switzerland. According to the labour unions, more than 1,500 workers from cantons Freiburg, Neuchâtel, Valais and Jura put their tools down on Tuesday.

A coalition of Swiss farming organisations, consumers and NGOs says it is in favour of a free trade agreement between Switzerland and the four Mercosur countries: Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay. But it is demanding binding criteria concerning sustainability.

The salaries of self-employed doctors in Switzerland are around a third higher than previously thought, according to a study by the Federal Office of Public Health. The median wage is CHF257,000 ($258,000). However, certain specialists can earn considerably more: neurosurgeons, for example, take home a median salary of CHF697,000 and gastroenterologists CHF627,000.

The state-owned PostBus company is threatened with losing bus routes in several regions, following a scandal over illegal subsidies. Jura is the first canton that will put its 38 routes out to tender next spring, SonntagsZeitungexternal link has reported.

The Federal Tax Administration’s IT project Insieme was a financial disaster and its replacement isn’t much better, according to the Swiss Federal Audit Office (SFAO). Systems are unreliable and underperforming, with billions in tax demands still outstanding.

A campaign has been launched to promote digitalisation in small companies based in Swiss mountain regions. On Wednesday, the Federation of Adult Learning and Swiss Mountain Aid presented a project for companies with fewer than 50 employees to allow for training in internet technology.

Despite a slight decline in fortunes, the Swiss still enjoy the highest mean wealth per adult, according to the 2018 Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report. The reportexternal link, released on Thursday, estimated the average fortune of a Swiss adult to be $530,240 (CHF527,707) compared to $537,600 the previous year. The Alpine nation still comes out on top, followed by Australia ($411,060) and the United States ($403,970).

Apartment prices have risen in every district in Switzerland in the last eleven years except for one. Zurich tops the list with a median price of CHF 13,000 ($1313) per square metre – a 97% increase since 2007. This is according to a study by the Zurich Federal Institute of Technology (ETHZ) in partnership with comparison website comparis.ch.

A major update to the World Economic Forum’s annual Global Competitiveness Index reveals that the global economy is ill-prepared for the transformation brought on by technology disruption. While the United States comes the closest to the “competitive frontier” taking the top spot in the ranking, the WEF warns that government policies need to catch up to prevent rapid technological change from becoming a drag on competitiveness.

Some 3,000 construction workers staged a strike in southern Switzerland on Monday to protest changes in the industry, including disputes around the retirement age of 60. Further action is planned in Geneva on Tuesday. The strikes in canton Ticino were jointly called by the Unia, Syna, and OCST trade unions, who claimed that business leaders were “blackmailing” workers with worsening conditions as a quid pro quo for maintaining the current industry retirement age of 60.

The main Swiss business federation has released its recommendations for the government’s sensitive reforms of the agriculture sector. Farmers’ groups reacted with cautious approval. Economiesuisse gave its appraisal of the government’s 2022 agricultural reform plans on Monday, an appraisal that mostly centred around the simplification and decentralisation of agricultural measures.

Swiss retail banks may face increased competition by a leading United States bank on the domestic housing market. The Goldman Sachs group is reportedly considering plans to enter the Swiss mortgage market, according to the NZZ am Sonntag newspaper.

The Swiss International Airlines is among the worst victims of a shortage of air traffic controllers in Europe. About 34% of all Swiss flights are delayed because of issues with air navigation safety or at the airport, the SonntagsZeitung newspaper reports quoting data from Eurocontrol.

The Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SBC) will shed fewer jobs than initially stated as it embarks on a four-year CHF100 million ($100 million) cost-cutting programme. Some 200 jobs are slated to go instead of the 250 announced in June.

The Swiss economy is tipped to grow by 3% by the end of this year, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In April, the organisation had forecast Switzerland’s gross domestic product (GDP) to rise by 2.3%.

A sweeping investigation into UBS bank, accused of tax fraud and money laundering, comes to trial in Paris today. The bank risks a fine of up to €5 billion (CHF5.7 billion). The trial is set to begin on Monday after years of investigations into the Swiss bank’s French activities, as well as aborted negotiations in which authorities made a settlement offer of €1.1 billion.

The Swiss Data Protection Commissioner has issued a legal complaint against the Finance Ministry for sending the names of bank employees, lawyers, accountants and other third parties to the United States to assist with tax evasion investigations.

The growing trend of digitization in the economy will render a million Swiss jobs redundant in the next 12 years, according to a new study. Some 800,000 jobs will be clawed back by new IT openings, but much of the workforce will need to be re-trained, warns consultancy firm McKinsey. Automation will mainly take the place of manual labour, office and retail workers, says the NZZ am Sonntag newspaper, which has seen an advance copy of the McKinsey report.

The latest Europe-wide figures confirm Switzerland’s reputation as a country of trains, with average trips and kilometres covered per habitant far higher than elsewhere. Some 72 trips and 2,463 kilometres: this was the average train time for each Swiss resident in 2016, according to Eurostat figures reported Tuesday by Litraexternal link, the Swiss information service for public transport.

The severe policies of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have led to Swiss companies decreasing their investments in Turkey by 50% compared to the average over the past decade, Swiss Public Television SRF reports. Over the last ten years, Swiss companies have on average invested some CHF200 million ($202 million) in Turkish markets, but today the figures amount to roughly half that.

Switzerland’s GDP is on track this year to increase by 2.9%, according to a forecast by Zurich’s KOF Swiss Economic Institutepublished Wednesday. This positive outlook is tempered by concerns over the potentially negative impact of global trade wars and a no-deal Brexit on the neutral nation.

Swiss agricultural production is up in 2018, driven largely by bigger hauls of wine, fruit and milk, according to the latest official statistics. Productivity is also on the rise. The yearly production estimate of CHF10.6 billion ($10.7 billion) released on Tuesday by the Federal Statistical Office represents an increase of 2.7% on 2017 figures.

The automatic exchange of information between Switzerland and the European Union came into effect on Monday. Owning property abroad without declaring it will no longer be possible. The deadline of September 30 ended the possibility of coming forward voluntarily, reported Swiss public television, RTS, on Sunday. For latecomers who have assets outside Switzerland and who failed to declare them, doing so now can no longer be considered voluntary.

The Swiss authorities have responded to demands from companies and cantons for access to highly-skilled employees by granting 1,000 extra permits for workers that come from outside the European Union from next year. From 2019, firms will be able to recruit 8,500 foreign workers from countries such as the United States, China and India.

The Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich) remains the best university in continental Europe, despite slipping one place to 11th in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2019. The list, which was released on Wednesday, scores 1,250 universities on five main criteria: teaching, research, citations, industry income and international outlook. Over 20,000 responses to a survey from 2017 and 2018 on reputation of the universities also influenced the ranking.

An index by Swiss bank UBS shows significant risks of real estate bubbles in booming cities such as Hong Kong, Munich and Toronto. The Swiss cities of Zurich and Geneva remain relatively stable.The 2018 Global Real Estate Bubble Indexexternal link, published on Thursday, found that bubble (or overvaluation) risk soared in Munich, Amsterdam and Hong Kong over the past year; the latter tops the scale as most at risk.The report also pointed to Vancouver, San Francisco and Frankfurt as cities where “imbalances continued to grow”.

The pharmaceutical giant Novartis will cut about 2,200 jobs in Switzerland over the next four years. Nearly 1,500 jobs are affected in production and about 700 in services. This restructuring is part of the manufacturing strategy launched in 2015 to adapt the industrial base to a reduced product portfolio, announced Novartis on Tuesday. It currently employs 13,000 people across Switzerland.

Around 17% of Swiss residents over the age of 15 hold two passports. The canton of Geneva has the highest proportion of dual nationals at 45%. According to figures released by the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) on Tuesday, the double nationality rate exceeds 20% in the cantons of Zurich, Basel City, Ticino, Vaud and Neuchâtel.

A national rally in favour of equal pay and against discrimination has taken place in the Swiss capital, attracting some 20,000 people, according to organisers. Unions, political parties and supporting organisations said in the run-up to the rally on Saturday that although equality was enshrined in the constitution 37 years ago and the law had been in force for 22 years, even today power and money are distributed differently among women and men.

A report on the salaries of CEOs across Europe has found that Switzerland once again tops the table, ahead of Great Britain and Germany. The report also discovers that salaries have risen over the past year.

Swiss specialty chemical maker Clariant has signed a memorandum of understanding to enter into a strategic partnership with Saudi Arabian firm SABIC. This will result in a major restructuring of the company along with changes in management and the board of directors. On Tuesday, Clariant said the collaboration will see the merger of units from both companies into a new High Performance Materials division.

The federal authorities last year cut direct subsidies paid to 16% of all Swiss farms due to irregularities often due to animal protection and welfare issues. In all, 7,145 farms, or 16% of the total, received lower payments, the SonntagsZeitung wrote on Sunday. The report was based on figures that have yet to be published by the Federal Office for Agriculture, but which were confirmed by the economics ministry.

Swiss bank Credit Suisse has failed to meet its obligations to prevent money laundering, says Switzerland’s financial supervisory authority. According to FINMA, the Financial Market Supervisory Authorityexternal link, the misconduct is related to the alleged corruption cases around FIFA, world football’s governing body, and the oil companies Petrobas and PDVSA.

The EuroAirport Basel-Mulhouse-Fribourg Airport should be accessible by rail by 2028. Project leaders are convinced that trains will replace the buses currently connecting the city of Basel to the airport within ten years. The French national railway company SNCF said on Thursday that is it is normal that financing for a project of this magnitude is not yet fully secured in France.

The Swiss appear to be switching off from social media, according to a survey, which suggests that the image of Facebook and Twitter have taken a hit. Some 55% of the Swiss population used social media in 2017, down 4% compared with a year earlier, a media brand study for the consultancy firm Publicom revealed. The report, published on Wednesday, says that social media lost more users last year than print media.

It is unfair that whilst Chinese investors can buy Swiss companies the reverse is not possible, says economics minister Johann Schneider-Ammann, who is currently on a visit to China. In an interview with the “Schweiz am Wochenende” newspaper, he reiterated his view that this must be rectified. For infrastructure like electricity supply and telecommunications, the government should be able to intervene “if a company is threatened by a foreign takeover”, he told the newspaper. He said this should apply to American as well as Chinese takeover attempts.

Despite recent government optimism about the Swiss economy, older people who lose their jobs are struggling, reports Sunday newspaper “Le Matin Dimanche”. The paper cites figures from the Bern University of Applied Sciences that found only 13.9 per cent of unemployed people over 50 in Switzerland find a stable job again. Many end up on social assistance after their unemployment benefits run out.

Although rapidly melting glaciers provide a temporary boost to Swiss hydropower production, their disappearance does not pose a threat, finds a study from the University of Lausanne. Forecasts predict that glacier melt will slow down between 2070 and 2090. But “fears of a threat to power generation are unfounded”, according to a press release published on Thursday by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), which funded the study.

Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis announced the divestment of its dermatology and generic tablet portfolios of Sandoz US to India’s Aurobindo Pharma for a $900 million (CHF870 million) cash payment. A possible performance-related payment of $100 million could be added to the purchase price, the Swiss AWP financial news agency reported.

The president of pharmaceutical giant Novartis has announced job cuts in an interview with Swiss newspaper NZZ am Sonntag. Jörg Reinhardt said the Basel-based company wants to streamline its production sites and administration worldwide.

Swiss finance minister Ueli Maurer says state-guaranteed cantonal banks are an obstacle in ongoing negotiations with the European Union. “This point still needs to be clarified before a framework agreement can be accepted,” the minister is quoted as saying in an interview published on Saturday.

The last SkyWork flight landed in Bern Airport on Wednesday night, as ongoing financial difficulties forced the company to declare itself bankrupt. Some 11,000 passengers are affected. The company, founded in 1983, cited the failure of negotiations with a potential partner to pull the company from recurring funding shortfalls that intensified in October last year.

The Swiss Competition Commission (COMCO) has decided not to open a formal investigation into watchmakers including Swatch, LVMH and Richemont over the supply of spare parts for independent watch repair shops.

In the wake of several major cyber security attacks, the government has released minimum standards for companies and organisations to help protect the country’s critical energy, food, and water infrastructure. Some critics question whether a minimum standard goes far enough as basic services become increasingly dependent on digital technology.

Switzerland has lost some of its appeal for foreign labour, according to a survey by an American multinational management consulting firm. Compared with 2014, Switzerland finished in eighth place – down three positions.

Switzerland has come out top in a ranking about the world’s most transparent small arms exporters. With a score of 21.75 out of a possible 25 points, Switzerland came first ahead of the Netherlands, Britain, Italy and Serbia, according to the 2018 Transparency Barometerexternal link, published on Wednesday.

The Swiss Credit Suisse bank froze some CHF5 billion ($5 billion) of assets linked to Russia earlier this year in an effort to toe the line with US sanctions levied against Moscow. The bank froze the funds in the second quarter of 2018, according to Reuters, in response to sanctions introduced by Washington in April.

Bread wheat, barley, and rapeseed harvests look set to be considerably lower in Switzerland in 2018 compared to previous years, due to the prolonged heat and drought-like conditions this summer. The figures, collected by the Swiss granum organization, were based on data supplied by 29 cereal collection centres, covering 35% of the Swiss barley market, 50% of the bread wheat market, and 55% of the rapeseed market.

Professors and researchers from Zurich’s Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) have joined the chorus of civil society actors calling for the Swiss state pension fund to divest from fossil fuels. In a letter to Publica, one of the largest pension funds in Switzerland, 166 experts from ETH Zurich, including 128 professors, demanded it stop investing in climate-damaging companies within five years.

The Zürcher Kantonalbank (ZKB) has agreed to pay the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) $98.5 million (CHF97.7 million) to resolve a long-running investigation into its role in tax evasion by wealthy Americans using undeclared Swiss bank accounts.

Using public transport infrequently in Switzerland is expensive, but thanks to new special offers such as “early bird” rates Switzerland does well when it comes to value for money, according to an international study. “Travelling by train, bus or boat is expensive in Switzerland,” is a common refrain among Swiss people – and especially tourists.

Many Swiss cows are getting too heavy for soft Alpine pastures, too wide for their stalls and too gluttonous for their owners. An interest group is now calling for cows to be bred that are smaller, lighter and more easily sated.

Various costs related to traffic jams totalled CHF1.9 billion ($1.9 billion) in 2015, up 7% from 2010, according to the Swiss Office for Spatial Development. In a statement released on Wednesday (link in French, German and Italian), the office said that costs stemming from wasted time accounted for 70% of the losses, having increased by 14% since 2010. However, other costs related to the climate (+12%) and the environment (+3%) also increased between 2010 and 2015.

Switzerland’s largest national trade union centre has refused to participate in discussions led by Swiss Economics Minister Johann Schneider-Ammann on easing measures for wages and working conditions as part of framework negotiations with the European Union (EU).

The head of the world’s largest watch and jewellery trade show, the Swiss-based Baselworld, has handed in his resignation amid a row over the departure of several exhibitors. The MCH Group announced that CEO Peter Kamm would resign from his position “in view of the fundamental transformation phase in business operations”.

Switzerland’s Federal Administrative Court has ordered the Federal Tax Administration (FTA) not to provide France with details about 40,000 UBS bank clients with French addresses. In May 2016, the French tax authorities requested administrative assistance from the FTA. They wanted details about UBS clients who lived or had lived in France.

With the departure of its largest exhibitor from 2019, it’s yet another setback for the world’s largest watch and jewellery trade show, which has seen participation dwindle in recent years.

UBS may have seen quarterly profits rise year-on-year, but chief executive Sergio Ermotti says the threat of trade wars and political unrest has dampened investor enthusiasm and continues to hold back financial markets.

Federal aviation authorities have decided to limit the number of time slots for planes at Switzerland’s main airport in Zurich. The Federal Office of Civil Aviationexternal link said it has ordered a freeze on landings after 9pm and for take-offs after 10:20pm to reduce the noise for residents living near the airport.

Swiss authorities sanction on average ten companies per day for violating wage protection rules, according to official figures. That corresponds to 19,200 fines in the span of five years. NZZ am Sonntag published these figures on Sunday on the basis of a list compiled by the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO).

The Swiss financial regulator has concluded its investigations into the Malaysian 1MDB scandal by finding Rothschild Bank AG and one of its subsidiaries in serious breach of anti-money laundering regulations. The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) said on Friday that it has appointed an auditor to make sure the bank and its Rothschild Trust vehicle properly implement an internal overhaul of its practices.

The Zurich-based Neue Privat Bank (NPB) has paid $5 million (CHF5 million) fine to settle a criminal tax evasion investigation in the United States. NPB is one of a handful of so-called ‘category 1’ Swiss or Swiss-based bank branches that were still facing sanctions at the start of this year.

Two people suspected of illegally obtaining and using the e-banking data of Swiss bank customers have been arrested in the Netherlands. The Swiss Office of the Attorney General says the suspects were arrested near the city of Rotterdam and premises were searched in the coordinated operation between Dutch and Swiss police and justice authorities.

The ride sharing service Uber plans to expand further in Switzerland, but not as aggressively as in the past, Swiss head Steve Salom says in a newspaper interview. Uber is present in Zurich, Basel, Geneva and Lausanne with 300,000 regular customers and some 2,600 drivers in Switzerland, Salom told SonntagsBlick.

Switzerland retained its crown as the world’s most innovative country for the eighth year in a row, according to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) – the global intellectual property agency.

A lobby group representing the interests of older workers has launched a people’s initiative to reform the occupational pension system to reduce the incentive for employers to sack people once they pass the age of 50.

The Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) has initiated a dispute settlement procedure with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) against US steel and aluminium import tariffs. In a statement published on Tuesday, SECO announced that a complaint to this effect had been filed with the WTO because Switzerland was one of the countries affected by the additional import tariffs on certain steel and aluminium products into the US.

A dozen branches of Swiss firms in Austria were targeted by German spies between 1999 and 2006, according to the SonntagsBlick newspaper which has seen documents belonging to Germany’s federal intelligence service BND. Part of the data was allegedly handed to the United States. The Sunday newspaper said the Swiss firms targeted by German spies in Austria included the pharmaceutical company Sandoz, which belongs to the Novartis Group, the logistics firm Panalpina, and the Zug firm Bossard, which specializes in producing screws, nuts and bolts.

A government study has found that the so-called ‘external costs’ of various modes of transport collectively increased by almost CHF1 billion during the period 2010-2015. For walkers and cyclists, however, benefits outweigh the costs.

About 13,000 companies are not listed in the commercial register – a serious problem, notes the Swiss Federal Audit Office. Increased cooperation with the tax authorities could be a solution. On Wednesday the office published an evaluation of how Switzerland has been combating corruption over the past decade – since it’s been following a recommendation of the Council of Europe Group of States against Corruption (GRECO).

Swiss commodities mining and trading giant Glencore has been subpoenaed by the United States Department of Justice (DoJ) in relation to its activities in Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Venezuela.

The Swiss Federal Railways is revamping its intercity IC2000 fleet at a cost of approximately CHF300 million ($302 million). The first completely renovated trains will be put back into operation in early 2019. The 341 wagons should be fit for another 20 years on the rails after their makeover.

The Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SBC), swissinfo’s parent company, announced on Thursday a series of belt-tightening measures, including the elimination of 250 full-time positions over the next four years. The SBC is initiating a four-year savings and redeployment programme aimed at saving CHF100 million ($100 million), which will be re-invested across its various business and language units.

Switzerland lost a total of nine banks in 2017 bringing the total to 253. Around 20 years ago the country boasted more than 400 banks. According to the annual “Banks in Switzerland” report released by the Swiss National Bank (SNB) on Thursday, only one foreign bank opened a Swiss branch last year. The number of people working for banks also declined. Staff numbers in Switzerland fell by 7.7% to 93,554 full-time equivalents (FTEs).

Swiss financial institutions and public authorities must do more to prevent organised crime and money laundering within the financial system, a study by the consulting firm KPMG published on Tuesday has found. The authors of the study called “Clarity on Crime in Financial Services” highlighted several challenges and problems which must be addressed if banks want to successfully prevent and identify criminal financial activities in future.

Unions on Friday threatened warning strikes for the building sector this autumn if the current retirement age of 60 for construction workers is dropped. At a press conference on Friday, Switzerland’s biggest trade union Unia, and the union Syna called for early retirement, as well as more worker protection and less temporary work on sites.

The gap between the top-paid and least-paid employees of the 39 largest companies in Switzerland remains high, despite a 2013 vote against excessive executive pay. According to Switzerland’s largest trade union, Unia, in 2017 the average ratio between top and bottom in these companies was 1:143.

The average Swiss will for the first time spend more than CHF10,000 ($10,159) on health care in 2018 and 2019, according to an economic research institute and think tank. KOF, part of the federal technology institute ETH Zurich, says this is down to the growing economy: the more people earn, the more they spend on their health. It also bases its calculations on the growing proportion of old people in the Swiss population.

The unemployment rate in Switzerland has reached a new nadir – just 2.4%, according to latest official statistics. The number of jobseekers is the lowest since the financial crisis. The statistics, published by the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) on Thursday, show that the numbers of unemployed turning up at job centres fell by 9% last month, bringing the overall unemployment rate down from 2.7% to 2.4%.

The continued volatility surrounding the Italian elections and the threat of global trade wars make it far too early for the Swiss National Bank (SNB) to consider raising rock bottom interest rates, says chairman Thomas Jordan.

The Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland (OAG) announced on Wednesday that it will not bring proceedings against Novartis in connection with the payments the Swiss pharmaceutical company made to Donald Trump’s personal lawyer.

The Swiss Abroad community has suffered a new setback in its efforts to receive improved access to banking services in Switzerland. The House of Representatives on Tuesday threw out a call on the government to ease the financial woes of expatriates by publishing relevant information on the websites of the foreign ministry and Switzerland’s diplomatic representations abroad for the Swiss overseas communities.

Post Finance external link, one of Switzerland’s leading financial institutions, expects to cut up to 500 full-time jobs by the end of 2020. The banking division of the Post Office has launched multiple measures to counter the erosion of profit margins and the resulting decline in revenues.

After almost tripling in the last decade, the number of tourists to Switzerland from the Middle East is slowing down, with the slowdown expected to be particularly marked this summer. The growth rate of tourists from the Gulf will be zero this summer, according to forecasts by Oxford Economics and the Swiss tourist board.

The Sempione Retail company, owner of the OVS fashion stores in Switzerland, has begun bankruptcy proceedings. Some 140 outlets will close their doors, with 1,150 workers affected. The Italian clothes brand announced in a statement on Wednesday evening that it had reached a financial dead-end.

A Swiss lender is suspending new transactions with Iran following US President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal with Tehran. Banque de Commerce et de Placements (BCP)external link announced on Tuesday that it was wrapping up its activity in Iran in response to the US pulling out of the Iranian nuclear accord earlier this month.

Swiss food giant Nestlé plans to cut as many as 500 computer-service jobs in Switzerland as part of a restructuring plan to increase profitability, the company announced on Tuesday. Nestlé will be outsourcing the IT jobs to Spain, according to a press releaseexternal link published on the company’s website.

Swiss crowdfunding platforms dealt with CHF375 million ($377 million) in 2017, almost three times as much as the previous year. Some 160,000 people supported a crowdfunding project. Over the past eight years, more than half a billion francs have been collected via the “swarm-based form of financing”, said the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts on Monday.

More than three times as many pubs and restaurants disappeared in Switzerland last year as the year before. The catering industry points the finger at the strong franc, responsible for more bankruptcies (+4.4%) and fewer new openings (-25%).

Switzerland has dropped from second to fifth place in an annual ranking of the world’s most competitive economies, whilst the United States have moved up three places to the top. Switzerland’s fall is due mainly to “a slowdown in exports, job growth and international investment”, says the Lausanne-based IMD business schoolexternal link, which compiles the 63-country ranking.

The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published Thursday a list of pharmaceutical companies that include Basel-based Novartis and Roche, all of which are suspected of hindering the development of generic versions of their own medicines. Over 150 complaints were filed.

Traffic queues of up to 28 kilometres were reported at the northern entrance to the Gotthard tunnel on Saturday, owing to a long weekend and the closure of another major Alpine road tunnel because of a fire. The San Bernadino tunnel in southeast Switzerland was closed on Friday afternoon after a German tourist bus caught fire in the tunnel, leaving two people with minor injuries. It is expected to remain closed over the Pentecost weekend, since the tunnel needs to cool down and be checked for any infrastructure damage.

An increasing number of heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) are being pulled over for motoring offences at border crossings. Customs officials have reported 83% more violations in the last eight years, rising from 17,997 on 2010 to 32,967 last year. A further 24,464 fines and cautions were issued against HGVs according to the SonntagsZeitung newspaper.

The government has defended the deal struck that will see Swiss Post delivering packages for retail giant Amazon. There is no question of preferential treatment, it said. The response by the government came in response to a parliamentary question raised by politician Olivier Feller (Liberal-Radical), querying the deal that will see Swiss Post delivering Amazon packages within a time frame of 24 hours.

A government survey analysing wage structures in the Alpine nation found that the median salary for a full-time job in 2016 was CHF6,502 ($6,509) for the entire Swiss economy. The bottom 10% of Swiss earners had a salary of less than CHF4,313 ($4,317), while the best paid 10% earned more than CHF11,406 ($11,418) a month.

For the first time, Switzerland’s Federal Tax Administration (FTA) has sent details on advance tax rulings to its partners in the spontaneous exchange of information deal. The FTA announced on Tuesdayexternal link that it had transmitted a first batch of 82 reports to a total of 41 states, including Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Russia. Some reports were exchanged with several partner countries.

The Swiss unemployment rate was 2.7% in April – a level last seen in July 2012. Last month, 119,781 people were registered as without work in Switzerland – 10,632 fewer than the previous month. This brought the overall unemployment rate down from 2.9% in March to 2.7% in April, reported the State Secretariat for Economic Affairsexternal link on Tuesday.

Switzerland is close to concluding a free trade agreement with the four Mercosur countries – Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay – within the framework of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), Swiss Economics Minister Johann Schneider-Ammann told reporters in Bern following his South America visit. Schneider-Ammann has just returned from a seven-day visit to the four South American countries, accompanied by 50-strong delegation of Swiss business leaders and politicians, aimed at convincing both sides of the benefits of a common trade agreement.

Switzerland remains the world’s largest wealth management centre for international assets, but the air is getting thinner at the top and other financial hubs are gaining ground, according to a global report. A total of $1.84 trillion (CHF1.85 billion) of international assets were managed in Switzerland at the end of 2017, says the latest Deloitte Wealth Management Centre Rankingexternal link, published on Friday. This is around 7% less than in 2010.

On Wednesday, some 40 trade union members from as far as Australia and Africa protested the Swiss-based commodities giant’s treatment of workers. The demonstration took place on the occasion of Glencore’s annual general assembly in Zug, and included protestors from Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Canada, Australia, as well as other countries, according to a statementexternal link (in French) by Swiss trade union Unia.

The Swiss food giant Nestlé is set to pay Starbucks $7.1 billion (CHF7.1 billion) to market the American firm’s products outside Starbucks’ coffee shops. Under the alliance deal, announced on Monday, Starbucks and Nestlé have agreed to work together on marketing strategies and innovation.

Workers and activists have been celebrating May Day in Switzerland with rallies in numerous cities urging their government to address employment issues, such as equal pay. Around 50 rallies and events are planned across Switzerland. On Tuesday morning, 13,000 took part in a demonstration in Zurich city centre. Other major rallies were held in Basel in the morning, and in Bern and Geneva in the afternoon.

One in ten fresh food items sold in Switzerland last year was organic, according to the Federal Office for Agriculture. The market share of organic products rose from 4.6% in 2007 to 9% in 2017, while the share of fresh organic food sold in Switzerland rose from just under 6% to 11.5% over the same period, the agriculture office reported on Tuesday.

The workers’ union umbrella group Travail Suisse is calling for the introduction of a blacklist to shame Swiss companies that fail to pay women and men equally. This is one of 28 recommendations which feature in a position paper published by Travail Suisse external linkon Monday, on the eve of International Workers’ Day.

Rail services between Switzerland and France are limited on Saturday, owing to a strike by French workers against railway reforms. Most high-speed train (TGV) services have been cancelled, with the exception of six return journeys between Paris and Zurich (2), Paris and Geneva (2) and Paris and Lausanne. A similar service is planned for Sunday.

More than a quarter of tenants in Switzerland are unhappy with their accommodation, but are unable to move – especially for financial reasons. A survey published by online price comparison portal comparis.chexternal link on Thursday has found that 26% of Swiss tenants consider their housing situation to be unsatisfactory. Of the 4,000 tenants surveyed, 67% said that they could not afford to move to a better place.

Swiss International Air Lines has been ranked as the most attractive employer in a survey on the 150 largest companies in Switzerland. Zurich Airport came in second, followed by watchmaker Patek Philippe. The survey, published by Dutch recruitment agency Randstadexternal link on Thursday, asked 4,800 people aged 18-65 where they would like to work.

Switzerland authorised the export to Syria of five metric tons of the chemical isopropanol in 2014, which can be used to make sarin gas, Swiss public television, RTS, reports. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) announced in May 2014 that Syria had destroyed its stock of 120 metric tons of isopropanol.

Relations between Switzerland and the United States have improved under the Trump administration, Finance Minister Ueli Maurer told Swiss public radio, SRF, on Saturday. Maurer is heading a Swiss delegationexternal link, together with Economics Minister Johann Schneider-Ammann and Thomas Jordan, Chairman of the Swiss National Bank, which is attending the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group spring meetingsexternal link in Washington from April 20-22.

As the Swiss franc weakens towards the threshold CHF1.20 exchange rate, the likelihood remains slim that Switzerland’s central bank will alter monetary policy any time soon. On Thursday morning a euro cost CHF1.198 francs. In February, the price of a single euro fell to under CHF1.150. The greater the number of francs needed to buy another currency signals a weaker franc, and vice versa if the exchange rate declines.

During another stormy annual general meeting, the majority stakeholders of Swiss chemical manufacturer Sika were once again controversially denied the chance to vote in a new chairman who would support their plans to sell the company to a French rival. At Tuesday’s AGM, the family heirs of Sika’s founder faced a familiar pattern of having their votes restricted when it came to electing board members.

Staying in a hotel in Geneva costs more than anywhere else in Europe, according to an international survey. The €242.90 (CHF288 or $300) average charge per night puts Geneva ahead of Paris (€232.30), while Zurich is listed as the third most expensive destination at €203.90. The Hotel President Wilson in Geneva reportedly boasts the most expensive overnight tariff in the world, charging around CHF80,000 ($83,300) to stay in its royal penthouse suite.

Aviation support company SR Technics has announced plans to cut a net 200 jobs at Switzerland’s main airport as part of a business review. The company, which is part of China’s HNA group, announced that it could reduce its workforce in aircraft services by as many as 300 positions while adding more than 100 jobs in engine services.

A World Wildlife Fund (WWF) survey published on Monday has found that the majority of people in Switzerland are considering shopping less, and young people are particularly likely to take a critical look at their buying behaviour. The Swiss consume “as if there is no tomorrow”: they fly twice as frequently as their neighbours, buy the heaviest cars in Europe, and produce more waste per capita than in any other nation on earth, the WWF said in a statementexternal link on Monday.

Impending corporate tax reforms are likely to reduce rates in higher tax cantons, such as Geneva, Vaud and Basel City, according to KPMG. Overall, the business consultancy group expects Switzerland to remain an attractive location for multinational corporations.

Nationwide strikes in France against railway reforms have resulted in all rail connections to Switzerland being cancelled on Tuesday. The so-called Black Tuesday marked the first day of a series of strikes expected to last until the end of June. Rail employees have been called upon to stop work on two out of five days every week until June 30.

In an interview given to the SonntagsZeitung on Sunday, EasyJet CEO Johan Lundgren described the company’s strategy for increasing its already-growing share of passengers in the Swiss market. Lundgren told the German-language paper than in recent years, the low-cost British airline has counted about one million additional passengers in the Swiss market annually, and anticipates continued growth thanks to a combination of targeted advertising and larger planes.

Royal Dutch Shell has filed a criminal complaint against a former employee it suspects of stashing kickbacks from the sale of a Nigerian oil field in Swiss bank accounts. The energy company is already being investigated over another deal there.

Climate fund payments made to now-bankrupt Swiss oil refiner Petroplus cannot be reclaimed by creditors as they constituted a business arrangement that brought benefits to contributors as opposed to a gift. This ruling from Zurich’s highest court has stopped a CH15 million ($16 million) claim in its tracks, barring an appeal to the federal courts.

Credit Suisse Chief Executive Tidjane Thiam earned slightly less in 2017 during his third year on the job, the bank said on Friday. The news comes at a time of scrutiny over executive pay and bonuses. Thiam earned CHF9.7 million ($10.26 million) last year, a 5.3% drop on 2016, Switzerland’s second-biggest bank said.

The electricity consumed in Switzerland is ever greener, according to government statistics: some 62% comes from renewable sources, while nuclear has fallen to 17%. The figures (in French/German)external link were released on Monday by the Federal Office of Energy, which gathers each year the sources used by electricity providers in Switzerland. The latest report refers to 2016.

Switzerland may be living up to its cliché as a cheese loving nation, but a growing appetite for foreign brands has alarmed local farmers. On average the Swiss consumed 21 kilograms of cheese per person last year, compared to 18 kilograms across Europe, according to figures published by the Swiss Farmers’ Associationexternal link on Wednesday.

For the first time, the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) has clearly indicated that Uber taxi drivers should be classed as employees rather than self-employed. In an internal statement seen by the 10vor10 programme on Swiss public television, SECO gave the legal opinion that according to the conditions that bind drivers to Uber, they should be regarded as employees rather than independent contractors.

The Swiss Federal Railway’s net profit increased by CHF18 million ($19 million) to CHF399 million ($418 million) last year despite posting a loss in its troubled freight division. The company confirmed a previous decision to cut 800 freight jobs but plans to reduce certain prices for its increasing number of customers, it announced in its annual report on Tuesday.

Mobile telephone operator Salt has announced that it will begin offering landline services in Switzerland, in a move set to intensify competition amongst current providers. Salt, which is already an established player in the mobile market, announced on Tuesdayexternal link that it would be proposing “a complete range of telecommunication services in Switzerland, including a ‘triple play’ offer based on high-speed broadband technology”.

Ongoing global trade disputes involving the United States are casting a potential shadow over Swiss economic growth, along with other international events, such as the Italian elections and Brexit. However, the Swiss economy is forecast to expand 2.4% this year and 2% in 2019.

The Swiss National Bank (SNB) was less active on the foreign exchange markets last year, acquiring CHF48.2 billion ($50.8 billion) in foreign currency to weaken the franc. On Thursday, the central bank nonetheless confirmed massive profits on currency holdings in 2017. In 2017, the SNB purchased CHF48.2 billion in foreign currency to stop the Swiss franc appreciating – down from CHF67.1 billion in 2016.

The Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland (OAG) has blocked various bank accounts in Switzerland regarding an alleged oil bribery scheme linked to Nigeria. Executives from oil giants Shell and Eni are due to stand trial in Milan, Italy, in May.

Swiss watch brand Rolex has topped a ranking of the world’s most reputable brands for a third year in a row. Rolex beat Danish toy firm Lego for the top spot, while Swiss food manufacturer Nestlé jumped 21 places to rank 33rd. The Reputation Institute compiled the list in its annual Global RepTrack 100external link, after asking more than 230,000 people in 15 countries to rank some of the world’s biggest companies based on criteria such as ethical standards, transparency and product value.

The Swiss National Bank (SNB) has announced that the latest addition to the new banknote series – the CHF200 note ($209) – will go into circulation on August 22. The brown note’s key motif will be physical matter. It will “showcase Switzerland’s scientific expertise”, the SNB said a press release on Monday.

The CEO of Swiss International Air Lines has said that it is not impossible that the carrier’s Geneva operations be taken over by Eurowings, Lufthansa’s low-cost arm, in 2019. In an interview published in the Agefi newspaper on Monday, Thomas Klühr said he remained “confident” that such a scenario would not come about, but that it depended on the Swiss airline making a profit on its Geneva operations through the course of 2018.

Only Singapore is more expensive than Zurich, finds an economic survey that compared the prices of more than 150 grocery items in 133 cities around the world. In fact Zurich tied with Paris for second place, followed by Hong Kong, Oslo, and Geneva – which tied with Seoul for sixth place.

Swiss International Air Lines saw an increase in profitability of almost one-third in 2017, the company has reported. The performance is largely due to more efficient and capacious planes. While total income increased by a more modest 3.2% to CHF4.95 billion ($5.24 billion), pre-tax profits jumped by 31% to CHF561 million.

A proposal to tax at source the old-age pensions of Swiss retirees living abroad has been made in parliament. The aim is to prevent differential treatment of pensioners based on where they live. On Wednesday, Christian Democrat senator Peter Hegglin tabled an interpellationexternal link in parliament to address unequal treatment between pensioners who reside in Switzerland those who opt to spend their twilight years abroad.

Johannes Rüegg-Stürm, the chairman of the board of directors of Switzerland’s third-largest bank has resigned from his position with immediate effect. The bank hopes turn a new page following the arrest and criminal proceedings against former CEO Pierin Vincenz. A statementexternal link released by the bank on Thursday, said the move was intended to “preserve the long-term credibility of the bank”.

The percentage of women in top executive positions dropped slightly in Switzerland last year, a report has found. The annual survey by the Schilling human resource consultancyexternal link shows a 1% drop to 7% in 2017 compared with the previous year. In 2016, the share of women in company executive positions had risen by 2%, raising hopes of a strong increase over the years to come.

Less meat was sold in Switzerland in 2017 than the previous year, although the average Swiss still consumed a good 26 kilograms of meat over the year. Sales of domestic and imported meat fell by 0.7% to 221,468 tonnes, the Federal Office for Agricultureexternal link reported. Turnover also dropped by 0.7% to CHF4.64 billion ($4.95 billion).

The chief executive of Switzerland’s largest bank UBS received CHF14.2 million ($14.92 million) in compensation for 2017, up from CHF13.7 million in 2016, UBS said on Friday. The announcement comes at a time when executive pay and bonuses are under increased scrutiny in Switzerland.

The Swiss government on Friday fixed the outlines of a new state pension reform plan, including raising VAT to fund it, and raising the retirement age for women from 64 to 65. The proposed reform is to be financed by an increase in VAT of up to 1.7%. Home Affairs Minister Alain Berset, who oversees social security and pension issues, is to submit a detailed proposal for consultation by lawmakers before the summer break.

The Swiss firm, Stadler Rail, has rejected reports that it signed off on a major infrastructure contract with Iran’s Industrial Development & Renovation Organization for 960 wagons for an underground railway system. The companyexternal link said there is no deal or decision but merely a public tender, according to SRF public radio.

Zurich prosecutors have opened criminal proceedings against the former chief executive of Swiss banking group Raiffeisen, Pierin Vincenz, looking into suspicions of misdealing. The bank has also joined the probe as a private complainant. “Raiffeisen is therefore making a maximum contribution to the complete clarification of all processes,” the bank said in a statement on Wednesday.

Employees of the United Nations in Geneva are planning a half-day strike on Tuesday to protest against wage cuts. The work stoppage would take place during a busy week, with dozens of ministers and officials expected at various events. “We have tried other forms of protest in vain before,” said Ian Richards, head of the Staff Coordinating Council at United Nations Office at Geneva, on Sunday. “They left us no choice.”

The Swiss mechanical, electrical and metal industries are recovering, as indicated by increases in turnover and employment. The industry lobby group Swissmemexternal link reported on Thursday that 4,500 additional jobs were generated in 2017 compared to the previous year, taking the industry total to 322,100. In contrast, 12,600 jobs were cut in 2015 and 2016 combined.

23.3% of businesses in Switzerland did not pay their bills on time in 2017, found the business information service Bisnode D&Bexternal link in a survey published on Wednesday. That’s 0.3% less late-payers compared to 2016. The average delay of payments was also shorter in 2017, averaging 14.4 days, compared to 15.7 in 2016.

The economic upturn should drive demand for Swiss property after a period of record construction and lower rental prices, a survey claims. The improved economic situation should “revive demand in all segments” of the Swiss housing market, according to Credit Suisse’s Swiss Real Estate Market 2018 reportexternal link, published on Tuesday.

Zurich and Geneva are among the top cities in the world for expat salaries, according to this year’s HSBC expat salary survey. The average expat can look forward to a pay packet of $206,875 (CHF191,960) in third-place Zurich and $184,942 in fifth-place Geneva.

After years of delay, the double-decker train named ‘FV-Dosto’ completed its first rail journey on Monday. The fate of the rest of the 62-train fleet still pends on a court decision following a legal challenge by disabled groups.

The cargo division on the Swiss Federal Railways has announced plans to cut 760 jobs in the coming years. The company currently employs around 2,300 staff in Switzerland. Company boss Nicolas Perrin revealed the job cut measures on Saturday in the weekly Schweiz am Wochenende. According to him, the administrative section of the firm is still too big despite already planning a reduction of 80 posts.

The Swiss sugar industry is facing stiff competition from Europe and is calling for political measures to save the industry. At a press conference in Bern on Friday, industry representatives warned that the scrapping of European quotas had flooded the Swiss market with cheap European products.

Despite a decline in domestic consumption, sales of Swiss chocolate grew by 3.1% in 2017 thanks to foreign demand. On Thursday, the Federation of Swiss Chocolate Manufacturers (Chocosuisse) reported total sales of CHF1.85 billion ($1.98 billion) for the year. The volume of chocolate sold also increased by 2.7% to 190,731 tons.

Switzerland continues to attract large volumes of cross-border workers, notably in the Lake Geneva region and around the city of Basel. At the end of last year, 318,002 people were crossing the border each day to work in Switzerland, according to data published by the Federal Statistics Officeexternal link on Friday. This is an increase of 1.7% compared with December 2016.

After several difficult years, the Swiss hotel industry is recovering. There were 37.4 million overnight stays in 2017 – 5.2% more than in the previous year and nearly as many as the record years of 1990 and 2008. The increase came from locals as well as foreigners. Total domestic demand increased by 4.2% to 16.9 million overnight stays – the highest number of Swiss-based guests ever, the Federal Statistical Office reported on Thursday.

The deadline of 20 years to exchange recalled banknotes should be abolished, the Federal Council suggested on Wednesday. The current system, which was introduced in 1921, operates under the assumption that discontinued notes which are not returned to the bank within the exchange deadline have either been lost or damaged.

Swiss consumers are increasingly turning to the internet for shopping. Online sales were up by 10% in 2017, with a 23% increase in online purchases from abroad. The total sales generated from online shopping in 2017 was CHF8.6 billion ($9.2 billion) last year, with CHF1.6 billion going to companies abroad, The Association of Swiss Mail Order Companies (VSV)external link, the market research company GfK and Swiss Post revealed on Tuesday.

The 2018 European Railway Award has been awarded to two pioneers of the Gotthard Base Tunnel, the longest rail tunnel in the world that runs under the Gotthard massif in the Swiss Alps. Peter Jedelhauser of Swiss Railways and Renzo Simoni, former CEO of AlpTransit Gotthard AG, received the award on Tuesday evening in Brussels “on behalf of everyone involved in building and putting Gotthard Base Tunnel into operation”.

Swiss retailer Coop is producing bars for Walmart’s own-brand chocolate, the SonntagsZeitung reported on Sunday. The chocolate is produced in a newly established production centre near Basel and has been available in Walmart stores since last year, confirmed Reto Conrad, head of production at Coop, to the German-language newspaper.

The Post has been operating its French subsidiary, CarPostal France at a huge financial loss, reported Swiss public television, SRF, on Monday. The company is also accused of having used a price dumping policy to unfairly increase its market share in France. According to an investigative report by SRF’s economics news bulletin “Eco”, CarPostal accumulated an operating loss of €1.8 million (CHF2.1 million) over the period between 2007 and 2016. The Swiss Post propped its French branch up financially by increasing its capital by €18 million and by waiving debts of €19 million.

After three weeks of talks, management and staff at the Swiss News Agency (SDA-ATS) have not managed to reach an agreement on job cuts, and are now calling for the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) to mediate. Both sides agreed to the call. Their negotiations followed a strike in late January-early February over a plan to cut up to 40 jobs out of a total 180.

The Swiss financial watchdog has published guidelines on digital currency fundraisers – known as initial coin offerings – under which it will regulate some ICOs, either under anti-money laundering laws or as securities. The Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) says the guidelines “also define the information FINMA requires to deal with such enquiries and the principles upon which it will base its responses,” according to a press releaseexternal link posted on its website on Friday.

A number plate for the Swiss canton of Zug has sold anonymously at auction for CHF233,000 ($253,353), breaking the previous record of CHF161,000. For now, the buyer of the “ZG 10” plate remains unknown, as the item was sold on Wednesday at an anonymous online auction. Several other car and motorcycle plates were auctioned off at the event, the proceeds of which brought more than CHF500,000 to the treasury of the central Swiss canton.

The Federal Office of Transport has filed a legal complaint to the Attorney General’s office and judicial authorities of Bern canton in connection with the scandal hitting the Swiss PostBus company. The complaint for possible breaches of administrative law, fraud and mismanagement is filed against unnamed persons.

Swiss government accounts closed with a surplus of CHF2.8 billion ($3 billion) for 2017, compared with a forecast deficit of CHF250 million, Finance Minister Ueli Maurer said at a press conference in Bern on Wednesday. This was due mainly to higher-than-estimated tax revenues.

According to a survey, 72% of Swiss business leaders in China expect “higher” or “substantially higher” sales of goods from Switzerland to China and Hong Kong in 2018 than in 2017, when exports reached a record CHF16.7 billion ($17.9 billion). Just 5% of business leaders anticipated lower export figures this year, according to the preliminary results of the 2018 Swiss Business in China Survey, which were released Tuesday by Swiss Centers Chinaexternal link.

Switzerland’s Federal Office of Justice has confirmed it has received two requests for legal assistance from Greece and the United States linked to probes into Novartis and alleged bribes involving the Swiss drugmaker and Greek doctors and public officials. The two requests for legal assistance linked to the Novartis-Greek scandal were received at the end of last year and in January 2018 and are being studied, a justice ministry official confirmed to Swiss public television, RTS, and the Swiss News Agency on Saturday.

The head of Swiss Post, Susanne Ruoff, has refused to step down for errors she admits were made at the PostBus subsidiary company regarding the manipulation of accounts to claim tens of millions of francs worth of federal and cantonal subsidies. “I neither lied nor did anything wrong,” Ruoff declared in an interview on Sunday in the SonntagsBlick newspaper.

Luxury shoemaker Bally, which was founded in Switzerland in 1851, has again changed hands. China’s Shandong Ruyi has agreed to buy a controlling stake in the firm from Luxembourg-based JAB Holding, the companies said on Friday. “This is an important milestone for Shandong Ruyi Group in our enterprise to become a global leader in the fashion apparel sector,” Yafu Qiu, Chairman of Shandong Ruyi Groupexternal link, said in a statement.

After a week marked by declines on Wall Street and stalling Asian markets, the Swiss stock market closed on Friday relatively unscathed, with the index of blue chip stocks dropping 0.93% to 8682.00 points. Over the course of the week, the Swiss Market Index (SMI) of leading Swiss stocks fell by 3.1%.

South Korea and Switzerland are entering into a bilateral currency swap agreement, it was announced on Friday. The move is aimed at strengthening buffers against external financial shocks for both countries. “The swap agreement enables Korean won and Swiss francs to be purchased and repurchased between the two central banks, up to a limit of KRW11.2 trillion, or CHF10 billion [$10.6 billion],” a Swiss National Bank statement saidexternal link.

The Swiss telecom company, whose majority shareholder is the government, announced plans to reduce up to 700 jobs by the end of the year as part of cost-cutting measures. It also revealed a data breach of client information. “By the end of 2018, Swisscom expects to have a headcount of around 17,000 FTEs [full-time employees] in Switzerland, around 700 fewer than at the end of 2017,” said a company statementexternal link released on Wednesday.

Five out of six Swiss companies selling wood or wooden products fail to declare the type and origin of the wood correctly – despite a legal requirement that has been in place since 2012. As the Federal Consumer Affairs Bureauexternal link announced on Tuesday, it conducted 120 inspections last year and found that only 17% of the audited companies had declared their products correctly.

Greece’s parliament has linked ten prominent politicians to a bribery scandal involving Swiss drug-maker Novartis. The Greek parliament announced on Tuesday the results of a judicial investigation into alleged bribes paid to public officials by Basel-based Novartisexternal link over nearly a decade to boost subscriptions of their products at public hospitals.

Switzerland’s federal technology institutes account for 100,000 jobs and CHF13 billion in added value to the economy, a new report calculates. This represents a fivefold return on investment, it claims. The institutes – notably the universities of EPFL in Lausanne and ETH in Zurich – have long been acknowledged as vital components of the Swiss image and economy; the reportexternal link by British consulting firm BiGGAR now tries to put a value on it.

New head of Switzerland Tourism Martin Nydegger expects hotel bookings to rise by 4% this winter season, owing to abundant snow. In an interview with Sonntagszeiting and Le Matin Dimanche newspapers, he also talks about priorities for 2018. Nydegger took over on January 1 from Jürg Schmid, who had headed the organizationexternal link for 18 years. He says he is planning some changes, but not a big shakeup.

Anyone wanting to drive on Swiss motorways from Thursday will need the new 2018 vignette, a charge sticker which is placed inside one’s windscreen, costing CHF40 ($42.90). The Federal Customs Administration said on Wednesday it expected to sell around 9.6 million vignettes, resulting in a net income of some CHF347 million.

The average commute time to work in Switzerland was 30 minutes in 2016, or 14.8 kilometres (9.2 miles), according to the Federal Statistical Office. This is 7% more than in 2010. Every day, 3.9 million people, out of a labour force of 4.8 million, commuted to work in 2016 – up from 2.9 million in 1990.

The Swiss Air Force has found cracks in a further three of its 30 F/A-18 Hornet fighter jets. The aircraft have been taken out of action, the defence ministry said on Friday. A broken hinge was first discovered on a landing flap of an F/A-18C during an intermediate inspection at the end of Januaryexternal link. It was then decided to submit all remaining F/A-18 jetsexternal link to tests, to ensure their air worthiness and safety.

Switzerland is the most secretive financial centre in the world, followed by the United States, according to the Tax Justice Network, a non-governmental organization that campaigns for greater transparency. The Cayman Islands, Hong Kong, Singapore, Luxembourg, Germany, Taiwan, the United Arab Emirates and Guernsey (in descending order) were ranked in the top ten of the NGOs Financial Secrecy Indexexternal link, published on Tuesday.

After two years of decline, the Swiss watch industry grew by 2.7% in 2017, according to the figures released by the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry (FH) on Tuesday. Exports grew by 2.7 % to CHF19.9 billion ($21.3 billion) on 2016. “Growth returned sooner than expected,” said the FH in a press release.

A labour court in Geneva has ruled against a Polish subcontractor that underpaid its seconded employees working on a Geneva building site. The workers were earning €8 an hour, about a third of what the work warranted, the court said. The case has been ongoing for almost five years and was led by the UNIA trade union on behalf of the workers.

Some 59% of Swiss households were rentals in 2015, according to the most recent figures. The average monthly rent across the country came in at just over CHF1,300 ($1,395). The numbers were released on Monday by the Federal Statistical Office and reflect the situation at the end of 2015, when 2.1 million rented accommodations were recorded.

Swiss Economics Minister Johann Schneider-Ammann has downplayed concerns that Swiss-based American firms might relocate to the United States in the wake of tax reform. Speaking in Davos ahead of a visit by US President Donald Trump, Schneider-Ammann said that if he were head of an American company he would think twice before such a relocation, since there is no guarantee the tax breaks will still be in place a few years from now.

Swiss President Alain Berset says his meeting with US President Donald Trump at the World Economic Forum in Davos was productive and frank. Trump took credit for making Switzerland “even richer”. “You have a lot of our stock in the United States so I have helped to make Switzerland even richer,” Trump said shortly after the meeting. He said a booming US economy was good for Switzerland.

Swiss Economics Minister Johann Schneider-Ammann says he does not think sweeping US tax reforms will drive American firms from Switzerland. In an interview with the Schweiz am Wochenende newspaper on Saturday, he said Switzerland also has competitive advantages for companies.

Switzerland is the second-most globalised country in the world after the Netherlands, according to the latest edition of an index prepared by the University of Zurich. The Alpine nation has moved up from fifth place. The index prepared by the KOF Swiss Economic Instituteexternal link tracks countries’ levels of globalisation across politics, economics, and society. The current edition uses data up to and including the year 2015.

According to the results of a survey published Sunday in the NZZ am Sonntag newspaper, CHF31.7 billion ($32.9 billion) in undeclared assets have been reported to tax authorities in Switzerland over the last eight years.

A study of over 40 Swiss finance institutions has revealed ‘striking’ differences in exchange rates for banknotes and currencies as well as the addition of hefty mark-ups and fees. Online banking and insurance comparison service moneyland.ch examined the exchange rates for euros, dollars, pounds, Swedish krona and Thai baht over the course of their six-day analysis, the results of which were released Wednesday.

The Swiss food giant Nestlé is transfering its chocolate research centre from Broc in canton Fribourg to York in the north of England. Some 25 jobs are affected but the existing chocolate factory in the Swiss town is not threatened.

The federal authorities have set up a special working group to look into how to properly oversee blockchain technologies and initial coin offerings (ICO). The Swiss taskforce is set to report back by the end of 2018. The State Secretariat for International Financial Matters (SIF) announced on Thursday that it had established a blockchain/ICO working group to review the legal framework and to identify any need for action alongside the Federal Office of Justice, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) and in consultation with the financial sector.

Switzerland remains an attractive tax destination for both companies and top earners in 2017, according to a survey of major global business locations published on Wednesday. But it warned planned US tax reform will increase competition.

Two leading Swiss organisations for social action and further education have called for big investment in training opportunities for the unemployed. At a press conference on Monday in Bern, the Swiss Conference of Social Institutions and the Swiss Federation for Further Education called on the state to invest in a schemeexternal link that they say could send 75,000 unemployed back into the job market.

The Swiss are passing on more inheritance wealth to family, friends and other beneficiaries than ever before – the CHF63 billion ($65 billion) bequeathed in 2015 is double that of 20 years ago, according to the NZZ am Sonntag newspaper.

According to an unpublished list that was revealed in some Swiss papers, Switzerland wants only five of around 120 bilateral treaties with the European Union to figure in a future institutional framework agreement. A reportexternal link on foreign economic policy published on Wednesday stated that an institutional framework agreement would apply to those bilateral agreements that allow access to certain areas of the European Union’s (EU) internal market.

Multinational companies based in Switzerland are increasingly moving experienced executives abroad to run production sites in lower-cost countries, according to a jobs placement company. The trend has been blamed on regulatory uncertainty in the Swiss marketplace.

United States President Donald Trump plans to attend the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland later this month, his spokeswoman said on Tuesday. In a statement, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said Trump was looking forward to attending the annual gatheringexternal link of world leaders and business executives in the mountain resort in southeast Switzerland.

The Swiss unemployment rate fell from 3.3% in 2016 to 3.2% in 2017, according to figures released by the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) on Tuesday. In terms of actual numbers, 143,142 people were registered as unemployed, a decrease of 6,175 compared with the year before.

The Swiss Trade Union Federation is demanding shorter work weeks, compensation for pension losses and enforcement of equal pay for men and women. At its annual media conference in Bern on Thursday, the Swiss Trade Union Federationexternal link pointed out that employees have been suffering since the financial crisis.

Switzerland’s retail sector failed to profit from a weaker franc and improving economy last year and business remains sluggish, according to a Credit Suisse report. Retail sales increased by 0.1% in 2017 after two years’ decline, Credit Suisse noted in its annual industry surveyexternal link published on Tuesday.

Switzerland’s highest court has ruled against the transfer of details of third parties such as bank employees or solicitors in cases of information handovers involving tax dodgers. Wednesday’s ruling by the Federal Court upheld an earlier decision in a case brought by a US expat in Switzerland who disputed the transfer of details gleaned from his bank by the Swiss Federal Tax Administration (FTA).

The year 2017 saw a record number of businesses created in Switzerland, many of them centred in the booming ‘crypto valley’ region, according to online platform startups.ch. Some 43,416 businesses were created, said the information and advisory websiteexternal link, an increase of 5% on 2016 and an absolute record in Switzerland.

Eight out of ten Swiss business executives anticipate a positive economic outlook for the country in 2018, according to an annual survey carried out by the SonntagsZeitung newspaper. Is it a sign that moods are changing after a 2017 that many would describe as turbulent? Or rather another indication of the Swiss exception, the country having largely escaped much of the economic and political turmoil that marked the past decade?

Thanks to advances in robotics and digitalisation, the trend towards the offshoring of manufacturing jobs to cheaper countries is set to be reversed, according to the president of Zurich-based industry giant ABB group. In an interview published Sunday in the NZZ am Sonntag newspaper, Peter Voser said that digital progress is bringing manufacturing and markets closer together again.

Some 6,000 people in Switzerland have banded together to sue German car manufacturer Volkswagen and a Swiss car dealer for damages related to the exhaust scandal. The Consumer Protection Organisation (SKS)external link announced on Friday that it had filed a claim on behalf of about 6,000 car owners at the Zurich Commercial Court. The owners say they suffered financial losses because the vehicles’ exhaust systems had been manipulated.

With a market value of $264 billion (CHF258 billion), Nestlé has claimed second place in Europe behind Royal Dutch Shell ($276 billion) in global rankings published by consultancy EY on Friday. However, that only put them in 17th and 18th place respectively, well below the global ranking leaders: the Silicon Valley tech giants Apple ($876 billion), Alphabet ($733 billion) and Microsoft ($661 billion).

Swiss business hubs like Zurich are more globally accessible than they were a few years ago. According to the latest “accessibility index” from economic research institute BAK Economicsexternal link in Basel, Zurich has jumped in the rankings from 34 to 28. This is due to improved connections to business hubs in China, India and the United States, says BAK.

Ski lifts in and around St Moritz in the Engadine Valley have started accepting Bitcoins as payment for passes. According to Swiss public television, SRF, and the newspaper Südostschweiz, Engadin St Moritz is the first Swiss lift company to recognise payments with cryptocurrencies.

The public prosecutor of the southern Swiss canton of Ticino has opened criminal proceedings over irregularities concerning the bankruptcy of regional carrier Darwin Airlines. According to the SonntagsZeitung paper, the Ticino public prosecutor opened criminal proceedings against “unknown persons” on Thursday after the bankruptcy office in Lugano drew his attention to suspected irregularities.

Switzerland’s oldest traffic tunnel through the Alps reopened on Christmas eve after a three-month closure due to problems with the ventilation system. After extensive repair work, the tunnel that connects Martigny in the western Swiss canton of Valais with the Aosta Valley in northwestern Italy reopened to traffic at 8am on Sunday. Motorists wishing to traverse the Alps though the tunnel can travel for free until January 1, 2018

To guarantee the smooth roll-out of its new banknote series, the Swiss National Bank (SNB) has bought a struggling paper factory in eastern Switzerland. The takeover of Landqart AG, valued at CHF21.5 million ($21.7 million), is split between the SNB (90%) and the security printing division of Swiss publisher Orell Füssli (10%).

Swiss NGO Public Eye has filed a criminal complaint with the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland against the activities of Swiss commodities giant Glencore in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The Office of the Attorney Generalexternal link on Tuesday confirmed receipt of the complaint but said further details were currently not possible, according to the Swiss News Agency.

A poultry farm in southern Switzerland has been given a clean bill of health following a recent outbreak of the virulent Newcastle virus that resulted in thousands of chickens being put down. Veterinarians in canton Ticino confirmed that the farm is no longer infected and that all remaining animals are now free of the disease.

The chairman of the Swiss insurance company Helvetia, Pierin Vincenz, has resigned. The Swiss financial regulator, FINMA, is currently investigating his activities during his time in charge of the Raiffeisen bank. In a statementexternal link released on Monday, Helvetia said Vincenz had stepped down with immediate effect.

Switzerland must not go to war on its own against offshore tax havens in the wake of the Panama Papers scandal, the lower chamber of parliament has agreed. It prefers concerted action with other countries and wants to see the results of existing measures. The House of Representatives on Thursday rejected two motions and two parliamentary questions, supported by the leftwing Social Democrats and Greens, which had called for financial transactions towards offshore havens to be taxed and for tougher laws on so-called letterbox or domiciled companies.

A study commissioned by Switzerland Global Enterprise (SGE) indicates that China is the most attractive export destination for Swiss small and medium enterprises (SMEs). A total of 107 countries were evaluated using a set of 15 criteria that included market size, market potential, export volume and average market growth in recent years.

Axel Weber, the board chairman of big bank UBS, has warned of a possible Bitcoin currency crash. With increasing numbers of small investors jumping on the cryptocurrency bandwagon, it is time for regulators to intervene, he says. Bitcoin has surged from $1,000 (CHF9,900) at the start of the year to above $16,000.

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 feedback from its partners, who wanted to earn more money through the more expensive UberX service. Economic success was not possible through its cheapest service UberPop, the company stated.

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.

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, the company informed its 250 staff on Tuesday that bankruptcy was imminent.

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.

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 Swiss canton of Aargau, where it employs 4,200 people unit focusing on gas and steam turbine production, but said no locations would close. The unit was taken over at the end of 2015 from Alstom.

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 difficult to meet passenger demand. Thomas Klühr, the head of the Lufthansa-Group-owned Swiss National Airlines SWISS, told the NZZ am Sonntag newspaper that developments such as the bankruptcy of German carrier Air Berlin have led to increased demand for certain European routes.

A first nationwide report on the health of Swiss soils has shown that virtually all are polluted and that the resource is not being put to sustainable use. The report, published Thursday by the Federal Office for the Environment in collaboration with the offices for agriculture and spatial development, brings together information about soil health that until now has been gathered in isolation through separate cantonal or regional research projects.

Swiss beer fans can enjoy an increasingly diverse selection(Keystone/Angelika Warmuth)

The amount of beer consumed in Switzerland declined last year, as it did for wine. Yet the number of specialist craft microbreweries continues to rise. Between October 2016 and September 2017, the Swiss drank 461 million litres of beer (54.5 litres per person) – down 0.2% on the previous reporting period, according to the Swiss Breweries Association (SBA)external link. As shown in the chart below, the downturn in the Swiss beer market began in the 1990s. 

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Beer graphic

The low point, in 2005, corresponds to when Switzerland lowered the blood-alcohol drink driving limit from 0.8 milligrams per

Switzerland’s Darwin Airline, the Lugano-based regional carrier, was forced to halt all its flights on Tuesday after its licence was revoked by the Federal Office of Civil Aviation (FOCA) over financial problems.

In an interview with newspaper NZZamSonntag, Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum, says that WEF is more relevant than ever. “We’re the witnesses to a transformation from a unipolar to a multipolar world. In this situation, the attempt to build bridges and work together is more important than ever,” the 80-year-old German engineer and economist told the newspaper.

The wealthiest people in one of the world’s wealthiest nations – Switzerland, have increased their assets by CHF60 billion over the past year. According to the latest edition of the German-language business magazine, Bilanz, the 300 richest residents of the country have assets totalling CHF674 billion.

The chief executive of the Swatch Group, a leading Swiss manufacturer of watches and jewelry, is upbeat about business prospects for the coming year. Nick Hayek says the Swatch Groupexternal link hopes to reach the ambitious target of a 7%-9% increase in sales this year.

The Swiss had an average net household disposable income in 2015 of CHF6,957 ($7,007) a month, the Federal Statistical Office has reported. Every month, around CHF560 was spent on leisure and cultural activities – and CHF89 on cats and dogs.

Commodities trading company Vitol has taken legal action against “inaccurate and defamatory” allegations made by the Swiss NGO Public Eye in the wake of the Paradise Papers revelations. Public Eye issued a press release and report on November 10 accusing four Swiss-based commodities traders, including Vitol, of doing business “with dodgy individuals or politically exposed partners” and colluding with the Appleby law firm to conceal “business relationships associated with serious risks of corruption or conflicts of interest”.

Good news from the Swiss watchmaking industry, plans to ban under-18s from solariums because of health risks and a warning that the Swiss railway system could face chaos in December. The Swiss watchmaking industry has made a turnaround following a three-year dip. Nick Hayek, CEO of the Swatch Group, told the NZZ am Sonntag newspaper that his company recorded a massive increase in turnover over the past two months, resulting even in production bottlenecks.

The seven-member Federal Council has refused to reveal its position on future negotiations with the European Union over CHF1 billion (little over $1 billion) in voluntary ‘cohesion’ payments destined for central and eastern European countries.

With a payment of €300 million (CHF350 million), the Swiss subsidiary of British bank HSBC has settled its tax fraud dispute with the French authorities. Investigations by the French government revealed that many French taxpayers had hidden their assets with help from HSBC’s private bank.

Switzerland’s federal prosecutor’s office is handling a request for mutual assistance in an investigation involving the Basel-based duty-free group Dufry. The request was sent by the government of Mauritius, which according to reports in two Swiss newspapers is looking into the details of an exclusive agreement reached between Dufry and two Mauritian airports.

The average fortune of a Swiss adult is $537,600 (CHF528,000), according to the 2017 Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report. Switzerland continues to top the Credit Suisse global list for wealth per adult, followed by Australia ($402,600), the United States ($388,600) and New Zealand ($337,400).

Credit Suisse bank has been ordered to pay a fine of $135 million (CHF134.5 million) to the US authorities after an enquiry into the Swiss bank’s practices in setting foreign exchange rates. The figure was reached in a consultation between both parties.

Following revelations in the so-called “Paradise Papers” of questionable deals done by Swiss-based commodities companies in Africa, Switzerland’s justice minister has said that the country – historically hands-off in regulating the sector – needs new legislation to force those companies to play by the rules.

Fewer people are moving to Switzerland from elsewhere in Europe. Between January and September this year, immigration from European Union states was down by 26%, compared to the same period last year. (RTS/swissinfo.chexternal link)

The following stories were reported in Switzerland’s Sunday press on November 12, 2017. A major South American rail deal. The SonntagsBlick newspaper reports that Bolivian President Evo Morales will head to Switzerland on December 14 to sign a memorandum of understanding with Swiss Transport Minister Doris Leuthard over a massive South American rail transport project.

Just over 20% of Swiss residents decided not to see a doctor last year for medical treatment due to the high costs, according to a new report. This is one of the findings of the Health at a Glance 2017 reportexternal link published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) on Friday. The share of the population foregoing a doctor’s consultation due to cost in 2016 was highest in Poland (33% of the population) followed by the United States (22.3%).

A Swiss man on trial in Frankfurt has been found guilty of spying on the tax authorities of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW). ‘Daniel M.’ was handed a suspended sentence of 22 months and a fine of €40,000 (CHF46,600). The verdict brings to a premature end the twists and turns of a case that brought scrutiny on Swiss-German diplomatic relations since the arrest of the 54-year-old in April this year.

Switzerland’s highest court has confirmed a CHF157 million ($158 million) fine against German luxury carmaker BMW for blocking car shipments to Switzerland. The fine was originally levied on BMWexternal link by Switzerland’s Competition Commissionexternal link (COMCO) in May 2012 for preventing Swiss residents from buying BMW cars from the European Economic Area (EEA) and importing them to Switzerland, after the strong francexternal link made prices in Switzerland up to a quarter higher.

Internet users in Switzerland rate their computer skills as good, but trust in online news content has dropped significantly, according to a survey by the University of Zurich. An overwhelming majority (83%) of users stated they can easily distinguish between important and unimportant online activities.

The ABB electronics group announced on Monday the offshoring of up to 150 positions from its Geneva production centre, while Roche is cutting 235 people in canton Aargau. Employees and trade unions reacted angrily.

Politicians, business directors and companies in Switzerland are among those connected to the so-called Paradise Papers, a massive trove of leaked offshore investment documents. There is currently no evidence of any legal wrongdoing.

A book festival in Lausanne has cancelled an invitation to Marsault, a controversial French comic book artist, after the organisers said they received threats from activists.The organisers of the Lausan’noir crime thriller book festivalexternal link say they will not be welcoming the French comic book artist Marsault to their event, which takes place in the Swiss city from October 27-29.

The total wealth of the world’s 1,542 billionaires – including 35 in Switzerland – grew 17% to $6 trillion (CHF5.93 trillion) last year, led by a surge in Asia’s emerging billionaire class and growth in the materials, industrials, financial and technology sectors.

A Swiss man accused of spying on the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia’s (NRW) tax authority has confessed and named names. In a Frankfurt court on Thursday, the 54-year-old man, identified only as Daniel M., explained via his defence team that he had not acted with criminal intent. Rather his motivation was “patriotism, a desire for adventure, a pursuit of profit, and outrage”.

The recent appreciation of the Swiss franc has sent shockwaves through Swiss firms, resulting in job losses and lower research budgets. But viewed long-term, Switzerland’s export-driven economy has adapted remarkably well to a strong currency.

The Swiss pension system has ranked eighth in an annual international study looking at the sustainability and efficiency of retirement schemes. This represents a drop of four places in the past two years, largely driven by sustainability issues.The Global Pension Indexexternal link, published by consulting group Mercer, ranks 30 countries according to a methodology based on adequacy (the design of the system), sustainability (breadth of coverage, long-term prospects) and integrity (governance and regulation).

Social media is becoming increasingly dominant in the Swiss media industry, controlling not only consumer habits but also the advertising market. In addition, television is dying. These are the findings of the latest “Yearbook Quality of the Media” by the University of Zurich. They are strong, they are dominant, they have money – and they are located outside the Swiss sphere of influence: the internet giants or “tech intermediaries”.

Switzerland has the second-best labour market for young Europeans behind Denmark, according to a ranking of over 30 countries. Denmark came top, followed by Switzerland, Austria, Germany and the Netherlands in the latest KOF Youth Labour Market Indexexternal link, which analysed the year 2015. The ranking is produced annually by the Economic Institute (KOF) at the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETHZ).

Scepticism of Sion’s Winter Olympics bid, the cost of travelling around the country and Switzerland’s addiction to sugar – here are some of the leading stories making Swiss newspapers on Sunday. The bid for the 2026 Winter Olympics has seriously underestimated the cost of security for the event, according to some observers.

The Swiss cabinet is not in favour of liberalising the Swiss transport market by allowing foreign coach firms to offer inter-city services within Switzerland. In a report released on Thursday, the seven-member body said it is not keen on going beyond the current legal framework, as it deems the quality of existing international transport options in Switzerland as satisfactory.