Con­fi­dent Part­ner­ship with China

China is Switzer­land's most im­por­tant trad­ing part­ner in Asia and the third most im­por­tant world­wide. Since the free trade agree­ment went into ef­fect in June 2014—the first such com­pact be­tween China and a coun­try in con­ti­nen­tal Eu­rope—the close part­ner­ship has con­tin­ued to de­velop. The im­por­tance of the eco­nomic ties be­tween the two coun­tries was pal­pa­ble at yes­ter­day's eco­nomic meet­ing. As part of the two-day state visit of the Chi­nese pres­i­dent, economiesu­isse to­gether with the state sec­re­tariat for eco­nomic af­fairs (seco)  or­ga­nized an ex­clu­sive round table event. Xi Jin­ping met with a del­e­ga­tion of 24 top busi­ness lead­ers headed by economiesu­isse pres­i­dent Heinz Kar­rer. Seated around the table were rep­re­sen­ta­tives of major Swiss ex­port in­dus­tries such as chem­i­cals, fi­nan­cial ser­vices, avi­a­tion and nav­i­ga­tion, ma­chin­ery, food, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, and watches. Also pre­sent were sev­eral suc­cess­ful small and medium-sized Swiss com­pa­nies (KMUs) with op­er­a­tions in China. In both economies, KMUs will con­tinue to play an im­por­tant role in the fu­ture. Dig­i­tal­iza­tion and the ac­cel­er­ated di­vi­sion of labor on a global scale will cre­ate new busi­ness op­por­tu­ni­ties for pi­o­neer­ing com­pa­nies in the KMU sec­tor. A field full of chal­lenges and op­por­tu­ni­ties for Chi­nese and Swiss KMU.

In his speech, the Chi­nese pres­i­dent high­lighted the fact that Swiss com­pa­nies were among the first busi­ness part­ners of the Peo­ple's Re­pub­lic. Surely this is part of the rea­son why he ded­i­cated his first for­eign visit of the year ex­clu­sively to Switzer­land. In his ad­dress to the busi­ness lead­ers Xi Jin­ping also in­di­cated that China is in­ter­ested in ex­pand­ing the free trade agree­ment. The two coun­tries signed a mem­o­ran­dum of un­der­stand­ing to this ef­fect. At the same time China would like to in­ten­sify its co­op­er­a­tion with Switzer­land in mat­ters of in­no­va­tion. Both economies' pow­ers of in­no­va­tion can be sup­ported through co­op­er­a­tion on re­search and all lev­els of ed­u­ca­tion. Since in­no­va­tion is the key to value cre­ation in the fu­ture but is also be­com­ing more com­plex and de­mand­ing, in­ter­na­tional co­op­er­a­tion cre­ates fresh op­por­tu­ni­ties. Specif­i­cally, a plat­form is to be es­tab­lished be­tween the two coun­tries to in­ten­sify the ad­vance­ment of the pow­ers of in­no­va­tion.

After the suc­cess­ful though largely sym­bolic meet­ing Pres­i­dent Xi Jin­ping trav­elled to the WEF in Davos where he is slated to give the open­ing speech. The role of China as an eco­nomic power in the world is sub­stan­tial. For Swiss com­pa­nies and for the busi­ness lo­ca­tion Switzer­land it is no small mat­ter to have a solid part­ner­ship with the Mid­dle King­dom. Es­pe­cially con­sid­er­ing the back­drop of dig­i­tal­iza­tion and in­ter­na­tional net­work­ing.

economiesu­isse takes a closer look at the pros and cons of the free trade agree­ment so far. Check out our dossier­poli­tik "Free Trade Agree­ment with China: A Mile­stone for Swiss Com­pa­nies".