Alison Martin, CEO EMEA and Bank Distribution, Zurich Insurance Group

British-Swiss re­la­tions: on the right chan­nel

At the sec­ond meet­ing of the Swiss-UK Trade and In­vest­ment Coun­cil on 15 March, dis­cus­sions deep­ened on im­por­tant fu­ture top­ics in the bi­lat­eral re­la­tion­ship. In ad­di­tion to trade and in­vest­ment is­sues, the Coun­cil also dis­cussed co­op­er­a­tion po­ten­tial in the field of in­no­va­tion.

The re­cent bi­lat­eral re­la­tions be­tween Switzer­land and the United King­dom had to de­velop under spe­cial cir­cum­stances. They “had to” be­cause Brexit has shaken up the con­trac­tual basis of the re­la­tion­ship. Today, how­ever, there is no trace of the ini­tial un­cer­tain­ties left; on the con­trary: there is hardly any other part­ner coun­try with which the two sides cur­rently main­tain sim­i­larly dy­namic eco­nomic re­la­tions.

Busi­ness and ad­min­is­tra­tion think­ing ahead

The 2nd meet­ing of the bi­lat­eral Trade and In­vest­ment­Coun­cil also gave strong tes­ti­mony to this. Under the lead­er­ship of economiesu­isse and the Con­fed­er­a­tion of British In­dus­try (CBI), around 40 high-rank­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tives from busi­ness and ad­min­is­tra­tion in both coun­tries met in Zurich on 15 March. Cur­rent and fu­ture di­rec­tions in bi­lat­eral trade in goods and ser­vices as well as mo­bil­ity is­sues were dis­cussed. These in­cluded ne­go­ti­a­tions on a com­pre­hen­sive fi­nan­cial ser­vices agree­ment and a mod­ern­ized free trade agree­ment, as well as an ex­pan­sion of the mu­tual recog­ni­tion of pro­fes­sional qual­i­fi­ca­tions. In ad­di­tion, ex­ist­ing hur­dles for com­pa­nies in bi­lat­eral trade in goods and ser­vices were ad­dressed vis-à-vis the au­thor­i­ties. These re­late, for ex­am­ple, to rules of ori­gin or na­tional reg­u­la­tions in the area of in­dus­trial goods.

Happy faces
Happy faces
Swiss and UK par­tic­i­pants from busi­ness, acad­e­mia and pol­i­tics

How­ever, economiesu­isse Pres­i­dent Christoph Mäder also re­called at the Coun­cil meet­ing: "We need not only new trade agree­ments, but also new ideas. As two of the most in­no­v­a­tive coun­tries in the world, we should there­fore rightly ex­plore the pos­si­bil­i­ties of strength­en­ing our joint in­no­va­tion ca­pac­i­ties." Within the frame­work of three bi­lat­eral in­no­va­tion work­shops in the run-up to the Coun­cil, Swiss and British as­so­ci­a­tion and com­pany rep­re­sen­ta­tives also iden­ti­fied im­por­tant co­op­er­a­tion po­ten­tials in the fields of re­search and de­vel­op­ment, fi­nance and in­tel­lec­tual prop­erty pro­tec­tion.

 

Council Chairmen and Honorary Councellors
Coun­cil Chair­men and Hon­orary Coun­cel­lors
Christoph Maeder, Chair­man economiesu­isse
H.E. James Squire, British Am­bas­sador to Switzer­land and Liecht­en­stein
Brian McBride, Pres­i­dent Con­fed­er­a­tion of British In­dus­try
H.E. Markus Leit­ner, Swiss Am­bas­sador to the United King­dom

 

Im­pe­tus in a dif­fi­cult com­pet­i­tive en­vi­ron­ment

Switzer­land and the United King­dom have con­tin­u­ously de­vel­oped their bi­lat­eral re­la­tions. But at the mo­ment, com­pa­nies in both coun­tries are chal­lenged more than ever to po­si­tion them­selves in the best pos­si­ble way in an in­creas­ingly chal­leng­ing, geopo­lit­i­cally tense com­pet­i­tive en­vi­ron­ment. This makes the close ex­change be­tween busi­ness and pol­i­tics in both coun­tries all the more im­por­tant – now and in the fu­ture. The Trade and In­vest­ment Coun­cil can pro­vide im­por­tant im­pe­tus in this re­gard.

 

Innovation Workshop on Intellectual Property
In­no­va­tion Work­shop on In­tel­lec­tual Prop­erty
Matthias Schaeli, Head of In­ter­na­tional Trade Re­la­tions , Swiss Fed­eral In­sti­tute of In­tel­lec­tual Prop­erty
Stephan Mu­men­thaler, Di­rec­tor Gen­eral, sci­en­cein­dus­tries
Ben Lucas, Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor, MSD
Luke Jes­sop, Deputy Di­rec­tor In­tel­lec­tual Prop­erty and Pro­cure­ment, UK De­part­ment for Busi­ness and Trade