Category Archive: 3) Swiss Markets and News

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Covid, December 18: 22 percent of Geneva tests positive for antibodies

An update to an antibody study conducted by HUG and UNIGE suggests that 22% of Geneva’s population had been exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus by December 2020.

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Large government budget deficit in 2021 for Switzerland

On 16 December 2020, Switzerland’s Council of States, the nation’s upper house, accepted a 2021 budget deeply in the red following its acceptance last week by the National Council.

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Covid: Swiss becoming more skeptical of vaccines

Mistrust of vaccines against Covid-19 continues to rise in Switzerland, according to a recently published survey.

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Switzerland among best placed to recover from Covid crisis

Switzerland is among the countries best equipped to withstand the effects of the global pandemic, although no nation has emerged unscathed, according to the World Economic Forum (WEF). 

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Covid, December 16: declaring extraordinary situation pointless right now, says Swiss minister

Speaking to broadcaster RTS, Swiss health minister Alain Berset said the pandemic was under control and that it currently made no sense to declare an extraordinary situation, a provision in Swiss law on managing infectious diseases that allows the Federal Council to take charge of the situation over and above cantonal governments.

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Switzerland and UK sign agreement on mobility of service suppliers

An agreement that secures reciprocal, facilitated market access for service providers from Switzerland and Britain from January 1 has been signed by Economics Minister Guy Parmelin and Liz Truss, the British Secretary of State for International Trade.

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Switzerland’s population happy with the health system, according to survey

Switzerland’s health system is rated highly by the public, according to the latest survey conducted in eleven countries by the Commonwealth Fund Foundation.

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Covid vaccinations will be free in Switzerland

On 9 December 2020, Switzerland’s federal government adopted a change to the rules on healthcare to make vaccination against the SARS-CoV-2 virus free to the public.

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Swiss footsteps in New Orleans

As a child, John Geiser III was surrounded by Swiss people in his grandfather’s adopted city of New Orleans. After the Second World War had ended, John was a young adult when his father took him to Switzerland for the first time. We met John in June 2019, when he gave us a tour of New Orleans. Over the course of a hot and humid morning – mainly on foot – he energetically showed us the traces of Swissness dotted throughout this city famous for its...

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WEF’s Asian relocation to cost Switzerland tens of millions

Swiss hotels, restaurants and shops are counting up the cost of the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) flagship event moving to Singapore next year. This year’s 50th annual meeting realised a net gain of around CHF80 million ($90 million) for the Swiss economy.

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Italy suspends rail links with Switzerland

Update: It appears rail connections between Italy and Switzerland will not be interrupted after Switzerland’s president and the Italian minister of transport spoke on Wednesday. Solutions have been identified to ensure compliance with Italy’s anti-COVID measures. Rail links are expected to gradually return to normal over the next few days, according to a report by RSI.

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Covid, December 10: Bern to consider new measures as cases rise again

On 8 December 2020, Switzerland’s Federal Council announced it was considering further restrictions starting from 12 December 2020 and running until 20 January 2021.

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WEF annual meeting moves from Switzerland to Singapore

The coronavirus pandemic has forced the World Economic Forum (WEF) to relocate its flagship event to Singapore next year. It will be only the second time in 50 years that it will be staged outside of the Swiss mountain resort of Davos.

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Swissair liquidator extracts CHF2.75 million from former bosses

Former Swissair bosses have been ordered to pay CHF2.75 million ($3 million) almost 20 years after the national airline carrier went bust. The bill has been presented to 14 former managers after many years of legal wrangling and court battles.

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Covid continues to stress Swiss economy

Overnight hotel stays fell by more than 40% during the summer as Switzerland locked down against coronavirus. The pandemic has also battered the finances of the airline industry, but most smaller companies have retained some optimism for the future.

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Coronavirus, December 7: the latest numbers

Here is an overview of the most important Swiss-related coronavirus data and graphs, which are updated automatically.

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Koyo Kouoh: Art is in the cracks, not in the polish

The Meret Oppenheim prize took Koyo Kouoh by surprise, and not just because she doesn't care about prizes. The Swiss-Cameroonian curator says she never found much of an echo in Switzerland for her artistic interests – postcolonialism, African diaspora, and identity politics – for which she has received praise in many other countries. Koyo Kouoh, described by The New York Times in 2015 as “one of Africa’s pre-eminent art curators”, is always on...

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Five lessons from the Swiss ‘responsible business’ vote

The battle over the responsible business initiative is now over. The way the campaign was managed and how the issue was eventually decided says a lot about Switzerland.

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Switzerland and the pandemic: does the economy matter more?

For a nation that prides itself on being on the global forefront of new technologies and science, particularly health care, Switzerland has an astoundingly poor record for dealing with Covid-19. The Lake Geneva region, which borders locked-down France, ranks as one of the worst coronavirus hotspots in Europe.

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Swiss home prices rose over the third quarter of 2020

Over the third quarter of 2020, home prices in Switzerland rose by an average of 0.2%. However, the prices of some homes rose while others fell.

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