State visit by the Czech Pres­i­dent: more than just busi­ness part­ners

It is no co­in­ci­dence that Czech Pres­i­dent Petr Pavel came to Switzer­land for a two-day visit on 5 No­vem­ber 2024. The two coun­tries have much in com­mon: with pop­u­la­tions of 10.6 and 9 mil­lion re­spec­tively, the Czech Re­pub­lic and Switzer­land are among the medium-sized coun­tries in Eu­rope. In­dus­try plays an im­por­tant role in both the Czech Re­pub­lic and Switzer­land, still ac­count­ing for more than 25% of GDP. Both coun­tries have close eco­nomic ties with their large neigh­bour Ger­many. In this re­spect, both coun­tries are part of the in­dus­trial back­bone of Eu­rope. It is there­fore not sur­pris­ing that trade with the Czech Re­pub­lic – apart from the two Corona years – has only moved in one di­rec­tion: up. As early as 2002, the Czech Re­pub­lic re­placed Poland as our most im­por­tant trad­ing part­ner in Cen­tral Eu­rope and be­came the sec­ond most im­por­tant mar­ket for Swiss prod­ucts in Cen­tral Eu­rope, just be­hind Poland. Today, the trade vol­ume be­tween our two coun­tries amounts to over 4 bil­lion Swiss francs.

Mu­tual in­ter­est in in­creased co­op­er­a­tion in the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal and biotech sec­tors

It is also no co­in­ci­dence that the Czech Pres­i­dent is com­ing to Switzer­land with a busi­ness del­e­ga­tion con­sist­ing of com­pa­nies from the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal and biotech in­dus­tries. Switzer­land's phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal and biotech in­dus­try is one of the most in­no­v­a­tive in Eu­rope and is an ideal part­ner for Czech in­dus­try. In Jan­u­ary 2020, SOTIO, a biotech­nol­ogy com­pany owned by the Czech PPF Group, an­nounced the open­ing of SOTIO Biotech AG of­fices in the Basel Tech­nol­ogy Park to ac­cel­er­ate the de­vel­op­ment of its im­muno-on­col­ogy prod­ucts in the pipeline. There is great in­ter­est in closer co­op­er­a­tion on both sides. This was ev­i­dent from the Eco­nomic Forum for Pharma and Biotech­nol­ogy at ETH Zurich on 5 No­vem­ber, which was at­tended by over 90 peo­ple, in­clud­ing Czech Pres­i­dent Pavel and the Pres­i­dent of the Swiss Con­fed­er­a­tion, Viola Amherd. At the Eco­nomic Forum, Christoph Mäder, Chair­man of economiesu­isse, em­pha­sised that, in ad­di­tion to eco­nomic co­op­er­a­tion, the eco­nomic re­la­tions be­tween the two coun­tries could be fur­ther strength­ened.