De­spite sup­ply chain bot­tle­necks, global trade will re­main cen­tral to Swiss econ­omy

In­dus­try ex­perts are call­ing it a ‘per­fect storm’. A sharp in­crease in de­mand is cur­rently meet­ing a tense sit­u­a­tion in lo­gis­tics. Con­tainer ships are jammed in front of con­gested ports and many com­pa­nies can­not pro­duce as planned due to de­liv­ery de­lays and fac­tory clo­sures. Since the out­break of the pan­demic, global sup­ply chains have been suf­fer­ing.

Reshoring mis­di­ag­no­sis

As a coun­try with­out any raw ma­te­r­ial re­sources and only lim­ited pro­duc­tion ca­pac­ity, Switzer­land is par­tic­u­larly af­fected by the cur­rent up­heavals in in­ter­na­tional trade. Both dis­trib­u­tors and con­sumers have come to re­al­ize that the sup­ply of goods can­not be taken for granted. Cur­rent dis­rup­tions in global sup­ply chains have also reignited the de­bate about se­cu­rity of sup­ply in Switzer­land. There are voices call­ing for more self-suf­fi­ciency. Ac­cord­ing to them, as many prod­ucts as pos­si­ble should be pro­duced do­mes­ti­cally.

How­ever, an analy­sis by economiesu­isse shows that such a reshoring of pro­duc­tion is not a proven recipe for strength­en­ing the sup­ply of goods. The dis­torted focus on final pro­duc­tion would not solve the prob­lem of a bot­tle­neck, but merely shift it along the value chain.

Strength­en­ing Switzer­land's sys­temic re­silience

For the busi­ness com­mu­nity, it is clear that the next cri­sis needs by no means to be epi­demi­o­log­i­cal in na­ture. En­ergy sup­ply as well as cy­ber­at­tacks, mil­i­tary con­flicts or nat­ural dis­as­ters also carry con­sid­er­able risk. The lessons learned from the pan­demic must there­fore not be lim­ited to the sup­ply of goods. Rather, Switzer­land must strengthen its sys­temic re­silience in order to bet­ter re­spond to crises of all kinds. In our study, we pro­pose var­i­ous mea­sures at na­tional and in­ter­na­tional level to this end. These in­clude, for ex­am­ple, strength­en­ing dig­i­tal trade or in­ten­si­fy­ing in­ter­na­tional co­op­er­a­tion in re­search and de­vel­op­ment.

Read the dossier­poli­tik here