Tag Archive: Business

Swiss minister pushes for renewable energy to replace gas imports

2022-07-04

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2022-07-04

Energy Minister Simonetta Sommaruga has warned of possible shortages of natural gas in Switzerland during the winter months

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Foreign currencies going off Swiss central bank menu

2022-06-30

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2022-06-30

Switzerland’s central bank is buying lower volumes of foreign currencies to support the franc as it balances the needs of exporters with the rising cost of goods.

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Traders with Swiss links continue to buy and sell Russian oil

2022-06-28

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2022-06-28

Around 20 traders have reportedly increased their shipments of Russian oil since the war in Ukraine broke out. A third of these players have strong connections to Geneva, according to the newspaper Le Matin Dimanche.

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SWISS plans more flight cancellations into autumn

2022-06-27

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2022-06-27

Additional cancellations of SWISS flights are “unavoidable” because of staff shortages, a company spokesperson told the Keystone-SDA news agency on Sunday.

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Alpine rail tunnel and suburban train services to get boost

2022-06-24

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2022-06-24

The government has presented plans for an upgrade of the country’s railway network, including an additional Alpine tunnel in western Switzerland. About CHF720 million ($745 million) have been set aside to upgrade the Lötschberg base tunnel and other regional projects near Zürich and Geneva in the next decade.

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Switzerland to ease exchange of Ukrainian currency in line with EU

2022-06-23

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2022-06-23

Refugees with a special legal status will be able to exchange a limited amount of Ukranian banknotes for Swiss francs. The Swiss government on Wednesday announced that adults with a protection S status may exchange one amount of up to 10,000 hryvnia – the equivalent of CHF300 ($310.50) at selected branches of the two main Swiss banks, UBS and Credit Suisse.

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Foreign suitors for Credit Suisse face high hurdles

2022-06-15

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2022-06-15

Switzerland’s typically liberal mergers and acquisitions market might make an exception for such a national institution.

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Trafigura posts record half-year profit as commodities volatility intensifies

2022-06-14

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2022-06-14

Geneva-based Trafigura reported record half-year profits as volatility and disruption in commodity markets, exacerbated by the war in Ukraine, supercharged earnings for the world’s biggest traders.

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Hotel booking platforms to face legal restrictions

2022-06-12

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2022-06-12

Parliament has approved restrictions on online reservation platforms to protect the Swiss hotel sector.

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Credit Suisse pushed for spyware sales at NSO despite US blacklisting

2022-06-11

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2022-06-11

Credit Suisse pushed for NSO Group to keep selling its Pegasus spyware to new customers just weeks after the US blacklisted the Israeli cyberweapon manufacturer, saying authoritarian regimes had used its hacking tool to silence dissent.

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Swiss set aside CHF100 million in Ukraine development funding

2022-06-03

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2022-06-03

The Ukrainian funds available to the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) for 2022 will not affect projects elsewhere, an official said on Thursday. Before the Russian invasion in February, the SDC had earmarked CHF25 million ($26 million) for development and cooperation projects in Ukraine; parliament has since boosted this by CHF61 million, SDC director Patricia Danzi said on Thursday.

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Economic divide: how equal is Switzerland’s wealth distribution?

2022-05-27

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2022-05-27

While the gap between rich and poor has been steadily widening in many countries, the situation in Switzerland has remained stable over the past decades, according to recent statistics. Yet while income distribution in the Alpine nation is relatively egalitarian, wealth is more concentrated in the hands of the rich.

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Swiss banks rigorously implementing international sanctions on Russia

2022-05-23

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2022-05-23

Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine is unacceptable, and wide-ranging international sanctions have rightly been imposed in response to it. The Swiss banks support these without reservation, and are implementing not only the sanctions ordered by the Swiss Federal Council, but also those of international and supranational authorities and bodies.

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Switzerland ranked second-worst global facilitator of tax avoidance

2022-05-22

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2022-05-22

Switzerland has moved from third to second in an annual ranking of the worst global tax havens. Overall however, the country is going in the right direction, reports the Tax Justice Network.

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Complicity in crimes against humanity: court upholds charge against Lafarge

2022-05-21

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2022-05-21

A Paris appeals court has confirmed that the cement firm Lafarge must face charges of complicity in crimes against humanity over alleged payoffs to Islamic State group and other jihadist groups during Syria's civil war. Lafarge is now part of the Swiss Holcim cement group, which says it will appeal the decision.

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Swiss central bank rejects ‘creative’ demands to change course

2022-05-06

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2022-05-06

The Swiss National Bank (SNB) continues to beat off demands to fight inflation by raising interest rates and to distribute more reserves to cantons and other causes.

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Covid loan claims fuel rise in suspected fraud cases

2022-05-04

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2022-05-04

The number of reported suspicious financial transactions continued to rise in Switzerland in 2021, but at a lower rate than in the first year of the pandemic.

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The riddle of Russian money in Switzerland

2022-04-27

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2022-04-27

There’s a well-worn Swiss bankers joke about the venality of a particular country. The actual country changes with the times but since this is April 2022, it starts like this: “Where is the capital of Russia?”

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Geldcast update: calls for a more transparent Swiss National Bank

2022-04-26

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2022-04-26

The Swiss National Bank (SNB) is very opaque by international standards. That has to change, says Yvan Lengwiler, professor of economics at the University of Basel. He explains his proposals in the latest Geldcast update.

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Swiss trade unions sound alarm about rising cost of living

2022-04-22

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2022-04-22

Trade unions say middle- and lower-income workers in Switzerland are facing a “shock” in 2022, with wages unable to offset rising inflation and health insurance costs.

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