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SWISS BUSINESS NEWS

 

 

WINTER 2003 - 2004

 

 

 

Top of the News

 

Three Swiss discoveries are among the best in Europe according to The Wall Street Journal (Europe). Based upon about 130 submissions from seventeen countries received for the Third Annual European Innovation Awards which the WSJ Europe co-sponsors with Accenture, gold and silver was found on Swiss soil. Gold medals were awarded to Swiss Abmi SA a developer of portable monitoring systems to diagnose strokes; a silver medal to SpeedScript Ltd. a maker of text entry systems for PDAs and other touchscreen computers, and an honorable mention to a research team at the University of Fribourg for advances in the field of biomagnetics.

 

 

 

Wins and Updates

 

Texas-based watchmaker Fossil Inc. has chosen Basel in Switzerland as the location for its European headquarters. The new facility will create 30 jobs in the near term.

 

Oregon-based Tektronix Inc, a world leader in testing, measurement and monitoring products, has opened an office in Neuhausen near the Rheinfall in Switzerland. This new location will become the administrative hub of Tektronix for Europe, Middle East and Africa. A workforce of 30 is projected by year-end.

 

Florida-based Tupperware, which established its international management and administrative office in Fribourg in 1997, signed a manufacturing alliance with Plaspaq, a Fribourg company, to produce certain Tupperware branded articles, thus creating 15 new positions in the Canton. The introduction of production activities in Switzerland is part of Tupperware Corporation's worldwide strategy to capitalize on new manufacturing alliances to produce certain Tupperware branded products.

 

Rexxan GmbH, a company specializing in the development and distribution of sealing and adhesives, has moved from Ludwigsburg, Germany, to Thayingen in the Greater Zurich Area of Switzerland. Rexxan products composed of acrylic, silicon, and polyurethane additives are used for special applications in construction and industry.

 

Arinso International, a European market leader in HR services, has opened offices in Geneva following a win of a sizeable HR Services contract from General Motors Europe. The company said that Switzerland’s unique position at the crossroads of Europe, together with the strong presence of corporate European headquarters, was part of its reason for making the move.

 

Belgian PET pre-form specialist Resilux has opened a 16,000 square meter factory in Bilten, northeastern Switzerland, at which all the company’s Swiss activities are consolidated at one location, following the acquisitions of Altoplast in 2000 and Femit Plastic in 2001. The facility has a capacity of more than 150 million bottles a year and employs 80 people. Resilux’s euros 12 million investment plan for 2004 includes two more blowing machines for Bilten.

 

 

Other News

 

The OECD (Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation) recently

issued its Science, Technology and Industry Scoreboard for 2003. Based upon a summary of the Report, Switzerland ranks favorably when it comes to numbers of university graduates, foreign-born Ph.D. candidates, overall innovation and productivity, etc. Other categories where Switzerland ranks high include propensity to patent based on population, percentage of technical workers, foreign student Ph.D. enrollment, household access to computers, and Internet subscribers per capita.

 

Switzerland dropped to 7th from 5th place in the Growth Competitiveness and Business Competitiveness rankings in the 2003-2004 World Competitiveness Report issued by the World Economic Forum. In the Growth sector it ranks 4th in Europe behind Finland, Sweden and Denmark; in the Business sector it ranks 6th behind Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, and the U.K.

 

The Heritage Foundation/Wall Street Journal Index of Economic Freedom also accorded Switzerland a top ten ranking, rating it 9th place (6th in Europe). The U.S. ranks 10th.

 

The 34th World Economic Forum with the theme "Partnering for Security and Prosperity" brought approximately 2,000 persons from the worlds of business, politics, media, and academia to Davos, Switzerland. Five of Switzerland's seven Federal Councilors participated in various bilateral and multilateral meeting also attended by numerous heads of state, governmental leaders, and leaders of industry from around the world. Among many other meetings, a bilateral government-to-government meeting between the US and Switzerland (the so-called Joint Economic Commission) and an informal meeting between members of the US Congress and their counterparts from the Swiss Parliament took place.

 

U.S. drug giant Merck and Swiss biotech company Actelion are joining forces to produce a new line of blood-pressure drugs with blockbuster potential. Under the agreement, Actelion will get an upfront payment of $10 million plus milestone payments of up to $262 million should the first product covered by the accord reach the market.

 

Novartis announced that it will purchase the adult medical nutrition business of a Bristol-Myers Squibb subsidiary, Mead Johnson for a reported $385 million. The deal will give Novartis, already the second biggest provider of medical nutritional products globally, access to the fast growing US retail nutritional market.

 

According to the country's food inspection agency, Canada has chosen privately held Swiss biotech firm Prionics AG to provide rapid testing for its expanded surveillance for mad cow disease. Canada already used the firm’s tests last year and now expects to expand the number of tests to 8,000 in 2004.

 

France and Switzerland are teaming up to boost cross-border scientific study and development in a bid to close the growing investment gap with the United States. The goal is to create a European hub for academic research and biotech start-ups along the border area between France and Switzerland. http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=105&sid=4650010

 

With the significance of the English language and English speakers, including American and Canadian investors in Switzerland, growing steadily, two new publications have been launched in Geneva and Zurich to appeal to the anglophiles in Switzerland's two largest cities. GEM, or Geneva English-speaking Magazine, which was launched last year to reach out to that city's estimated 35,000 English speakers, has now been followed by the launch of CREAM in Zurich this year. For more information about the two magazines, please see www.cream-magazine.ch and www.gem.ch

 

The Association of Swiss Technology Parks, currently made up of fourteen parks and technology firms, announced that Mr. Paul W. Gilgen will serve as the new head of the organization effective immediately. Gilgen was previously the General Manager of the technology center Euregio Bodensee.

 

 

Publicity and Promotion

 

Reprints of the October 9 article from The Wall Street Journal, which described how Switzerland is attracting American multinationals relocating from traditional EU locales, was sent to a list of 2700 VPs/Directors of Finance of companies with sales volumes between $500 million and $1 billion. The list was based on readership of CFO Magazine. A cover letter accompanied the mailing, inviting recipients to contact Location Switzerland for additional information.

 

Releases distributed since the last newsletter:

 

November 11- Zimmer Selects Switzerland for European and Australasia Headquarters

 

November 25 - AccuWeb Opens European Subsidiary in Switzerland

 

 

 

News from Location Promotion Switzerland