In 2013, Geneva airport recorded some 50’000 landing and take-offs (about 140 per day). What is interesting though is according to Wijet, a private aviation company, nearly half of these were private flights. The same company has announced that it is now offering private flights from Geneva to 1’200 destinations in Europe and North Africa […]
Nyon tax hike avoided: debt to increase
How to pay for Nyon’s future CHF 70 million sports and education complex was put to the vote this week. In a vote 55 to 34, right wing parties rejected a proposal to raise tax by 5 points claiming it can be funded out of annual revenues. The left argue that a tax hike is […]
French out to tax Basel Airport
Unlike Geneva airport, which is located entirely on Swiss soil but still operates a French side, Switzerland’s third major airport – Basel-Mulhouse EuroAirport – is on French territory, but run by the Swiss. Paris now wants to run the show by taxing all revenue, plus imposing its own rights on both French employees and companies. […]
Switzerland as a global sustainability hub
Five hundred people from more than 40 countries met in Lausanne at the annual Business-for-Society Forum to discuss positioning Switzerland as a global sustainability hub. This is not the first time such an idea has been promoted. Variations on this theme have been mooted previously by the government, think tanks and universities alike. What makes […]
Social assistance higher in Suisse romande
BERN The number of people on welfare in Swiss cities is generally higher in Suisse romande than in German-speaking cities, according to a study by Bern University and the Cities Initiative for Social Policy. Lausanne and Bienne/Biel have the greatest percentage of people on welfare among 13 cities surveyed, with increases in five other cities, […]
Swiss tax revolution
The question facing the Swiss federal government is how to keep Swiss corporate taxes attractive without offering foreign companies preferential tax rates, a system that the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the European Union (EU) will no longer tolerate. The Swiss Federal Council, the seven-member executive council which constitutes the federal government, […]
Swiss top wealth list
A global wealth report released by Allianz this week put the Swiss at the top. The average Swiss has EUR 146,540 of net financial assets. This puts them in first place ahead of the Americans with EUR 119,570. The UK is down in 10th position with EUR 63,490 per capita. Overall, the world was 9.9% […]
Netflix streaming service arrives in Switzerland
Netflix, a US provider of on-demand Internet streaming, this week launched a second wave of European expansion. The film and TV series streaming service is now available in France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg and Switzerland. Netflix promised its shareholders growth and this latest development is central to its plans. Competition in some of these markets, however, is stiff. Germany has Prime Instant Video from […]
Changing times at Le Temps
The Swiss Competition Commission last week approved publisher, Ringier’s take-over of flagship Swiss daily Le Temps. Managing director, Valérie Boagno has left the company and Daniel Pillard, CEO at Ringier Romandie, assumes operational management in the interim. From April 2015, Stéphane Benoit-Godet (44), Bilan’s current editor-in-chief, will be the newspaper’s editor-in-chief. Benoit-Godet worked for […]
Swiss vacancy rates increasing
According to data recently released by the Federal Office of Statistics 45,748 dwellings were vacant in Switzerland at 1 June 2014. This is just over 1% of all dwellings and represents an annual 14% increase in vacancy rates. The biggest increases were in the Lake Geneva region, followed by the Mittelland, Zurich and eastern Switzerland. […]
