18 November 2016 – Swiss and global market roundup. Brought to you by Investec Switzerland. Swiss stocks continued to rise this week, in line with other global stocks thanks to a strong performance from financials which gained as investors weighted the prospects of higher interest rates in the US. Stocks in the financial sector advanced after […]
Swiss fact: Switzerland’s newest canton was created as recently as 1979
Most consider 1291 to be the date Switzerland became a nation. That year, the three cantons of Uri, Unterwalden and Schwyz, agreed to stand together against outside judges and aggressors. Progressively over the years Switzerland expanded from these three cantons, to 25, when Geneva joined in 1815. Switzerland would wait more than 160 years to […]
Geneva unveils big tax changes
Le Matin. After nearly ten years of European Union opposition to preferential company tax deals, Switzerland’s government agreed in 2014 to do away with such arrangements. Under current rules Swiss cantons can offer preferential tax rates to certain companies, mostly multinationals with most of their activity abroad. In Geneva, these special rates mean certain companies pay tax […]
International Geneva gets a new magazine in English
A new English-language magazine for international Geneva, called Global Geneva, launches its pilot issue this week. Le News interviewed the magazine’s co-founder and editor, former Le News editor, Edward Girardet, to find out why he started it and what it’s all about. Over a coffee with Edward in the UN cafeteria, he points out the window at […]
Swiss eat poorly and excessively, according to government survey
A recent study by Switzerland’s Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office (FSVO) found that 43% of Switzerland’s population was overweight or obese. Of these 30% were overweight and 13% obese. This rate of obesity was the same as the global average in a 2014 study. The research, which used the Body Mass Index (BMI) to measure levels of obesity […]
China fines Swiss-based packager Tetra Pak for breaking monopoly rules
Brought to you by Investec Switzerland. According to Reuters, following an investigation, China’s State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC) said, it found out that Tetra Pak violated some provisions in China’s anti-trust law and will impose a fine of 668 million yuan ($97 million) on Tetra Pak for “abuse of dominant market position”. The […]
Swiss National Bank won’t cut record low interest rate again, survey shows
Brought to you by Investec Switzerland. The Swiss National Bank, which has the lowest interest rate among the world’s major central banks, may be done cutting. SNB President Thomas Jordan and his fellow policy makers will keep the deposit rate unchanged at minus 0.75 percent until at least the end of the first quarter of […]
A pilgrimage to Geneva’s cemetery of Kings, with artist and writer John Berger
British writer and artist John Berger – 90 years-old on 5 November, 2016 – has lived in the nearby French Haute-Savoie since the 1970s and has made a name celebrating the vanishing culture and life of European peasants. But as Peter Hulm points out, Berger is also a surpising fan of bourgeois Geneva, and of […]
Swisscom promises to put an end to unwanted sales calls
Swisscom’s fixed line (remember those) customers will be given the option of blocking unwanted calls from 28 November. The service will be free and can be activated by checking a box online or by calling the Swisscom hotline (0800 800 800). Sunrise and UPC are expected to follow Swisscom by mid 2017, according to 24 […]
Anger rises in Bern over Clinton donation
24 Heures. Over the weekend the newspaper Schweiz am Sonntag revealed that the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), a government agency, made a large payment to the Clinton Foundation, at a politically delicate time when Switzerland was in the middle of difficult discussions over Swiss banking activities related to US citizens. In February 2011, […]
