Busi­ness sup­ports Swiss gov­ern­ment’s sanc­tions against Rus­sia

economiesu­isse strongly con­demns Rus­sia's war of ag­gres­sion against Ukraine. Rus­sia's bla­tant breach of in­ter­na­tional law is un­ac­cept­able. Con­se­quently, the Swiss busi­ness com­mu­nity sup­ports Switzer­land's sanc­tions mea­sures. As a neu­tral coun­try, Switzer­land par­tic­i­pates in the UN sanc­tions in ac­cor­dance with the Em­bargo Act. The nec­es­sary legal basis for sup­port­ing sanc­tions of im­por­tant trad­ing part­ners such as the EU are in place.

Switzer­land tight­ens sanc­tions against Rus­sia

The Fed­eral Coun­cil today de­cided on adopt­ing fur­ther mea­sures against Rus­sia. This brings Switzer­land's mea­sures in line with those of the EU. The Swiss sanc­tions in­clude ex­port bans on cer­tain goods, the freez­ing of fi­nan­cial as­sets, the ex­clu­sion of five Russ­ian banks from SWIFT, entry bans for five peo­ple, the clo­sure of Swiss air­space to all flights from Rus­sia and the sus­pen­sion of the visa agree­ment with Rus­sia. Ad­di­tion­ally, Switzer­land will pro­vide hu­man­i­tar­ian aid to the Ukrain­ian pop­u­la­tion. economiesu­isse sup­ports these tight­ened sanc­tions and the ad­di­tional mea­sures to sup­port Ukraine.

Swiss ex­port sec­tor barely af­fected

The di­rect eco­nomic im­pact of these mea­sures on the Swiss ex­port in­dus­try and the Swiss fi­nan­cial cen­tre is minor. The trade vol­ume with Rus­sia amounts to a total of 4.7 bil­lion Swiss francs (ex­ports and im­ports, 2021). Rus­sia is thus ranked 23rd among Switzer­land's most im­por­tant trad­ing part­ners in terms of goods. Swiss ex­ports of goods to Rus­sia amounted to 3.4 bil­lion Swiss francs and im­ports to 1.3 bil­lion Swiss francs (2021). Swiss ex­ports of ser­vices to Rus­sia amounted to 2.4 bil­lion Swiss francs in 2018 and im­ports from Rus­sia to 0.9 bil­lion Swiss francs.