Suc­cess Fac­tors

Ef­fi­cient In­fra­struc­tures

Whether for trans­port, en­ergy, or telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions, Switzer­land needs high-qual­ity in­fra­struc­tures that sup­port the coun­try's eco­nomic de­vel­op­ment. Pro­vid­ing these is a shared re­spon­si­bil­ity of the gov­ern­ment and the pri­vate sec­tor. The ex­pan­sion of ex­ist­ing ca­pac­i­ties should be based on the needs of busi­ness and the pop­u­la­tion. Pri­or­i­ties will be set ac­cord­ingly. Each in­fra­struc­ture fa­cil­ity needs the high­est pos­si­ble de­gree of self-suf­fi­ciency. The gov­ern­ment es­tab­lishes the ground rules that allow the dif­fer­ent modes of trans­port, sources of en­ergy, or providers of telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions to de­velop and im­prove through com­pe­ti­tion.

Switzer­land's global net­work­ing cur­rently al­lows Roche to re­cruit top tal­ent with­out much bu­reau­cratic red tape.

Read more about the history of the Hôtel du Théâtre

Lead­ing Ed­u­ca­tion and Re­search Lo­ca­tion

The qual­ity of Swiss ed­u­ca­tion and re­search is out­stand­ing—it is a key to progress and has earned the coun­try the title "In­no­va­tion Word Cham­pion". The dual ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem that al­lows young peo­ple of every stripe to de­velop their tal­ents must there­fore be cul­ti­vated and con­sis­tently de­vel­oped fur­ther. The same goes for the fruit­ful co­op­er­a­tion be­tween pub­lic re­search in­sti­tu­tions and pri­vate sec­tor econ­omy. Be­cause in­vest­ments in ed­u­ca­tion and re­search only pay off in the long run they should never be sac­ri­ficed for short-term po­lit­i­cal gain.

Se­cure, Com­pet­i­tive En­ergy Sup­ply and Ef­fi­cient Pro­tec­tion of the En­vi­ron­ment

Switzer­land's en­ergy sup­ply is suf­fi­cient, cost-ef­fec­tive, and se­cure. The coun­try deals ra­tio­nally with the ad­van­tages and dis­ad­van­tages of dif­fer­ent forms of en­ergy pro­duc­tion and uses them ef­fi­ciently. The econ­omy, for its part, op­er­ates at a high level of en­ergy ef­fi­ciency and is try­ing to im­prove fur­ther. The Swiss en­ergy mar­ket is closely linked to for­eign coun­tries and is to be­come part of the Eu­ro­pean Sin­gle Mar­ket. Be­cause a well pre­served en­vi­ron­ment is an im­por­tant at­tribute for an at­trac­tive busi­ness lo­ca­tion the econ­omy sup­ports ef­forts to use nat­ural re­sources spar­ingly. How­ever, a na­tional solo ef­fort to pro­tect the en­vi­ron­ment and the cli­mate is not an op­tion.

If you're going to cut down trees at all, you might as well turn them into a news­pa­per five times and burn the re­mains to gen­er­ate en­ergy, in­stead of just feed­ing it straight into the fur­nace.

Read more about the history of Perlen Papier AG

Open Ac­cess to World Mar­kets

<p>As an ex­port na­tion Switzer­land de­pends on ex­cel­lent ac­cess to for­eign mar­kets. The main tools to en­sure this are free trade agree­ments and the bi­lat­eral agree­ments with the Eu­ro­pean Union, linked to a com­mit­ment to im­por­tant in­ter­na­tional or­ga­ni­za­tions such as the WTO or the OECD. As it can­not de­fend its in­ter­ests with the means of a great power Switzer­land ap­pre­ci­ates in­ter­na­tional stan­dards and agree­ments and the fact that these can be en­forced by an in­ter­na­tional court of law in the event of a con­flict.</p>

Read more about the history of the Swiss multinational Roche

Com­pet­i­tive Fi­nance and Tax Pol­icy

<p>Healthy pub­lic fi­nances strengthen the con­fi­dence of in­vestors look­ing for an at­trac­tive busi­ness lo­ca­tion. In this re­spect, Switzer­land has played its cards well. The same is true for Swiss tax pol­icy which is based on fed­er­al­ism and com­pe­ti­tion. Can­tons and mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties, which are dis­ad­van­taged by this com­pe­ti­tion, ben­e­fit from a fair sys­tem of fis­cal equal­iza­tion. Still, re­forms are nec­es­sary. For one thing, Switzer­land needs a tax sys­tem that meets in­ter­na­tional stan­dards. For an­other, ris­ing so­cial spend­ing must not be al­lowed to pre­vent the gov­ern­ment from ful­fill­ing its other re­spon­si­bil­i­ties. Given cur­rent de­mo­graphic trends a re­form of so­cial se­cu­rity is in­evitable.</p>

Free and Open Labor Mar­kets

<p>An open, flex­i­ble labor mar­ket con­tributes a lot to Switzer­land's pros­per­ity. Com­pa­nies can find the skilled per­son­nel they need to grow. In times of cri­sis they can cut jobs with­out bu­reau­cratic in­ter­fer­ence in order to as­sure their sur­vival. This, cou­pled with a func­tion­ing so­cial part­ner­ship pre­vents high un­em­ploy­ment and so­cial un­rest. Re­cently, the func­tion­ing free labor mar­ket has come under scrutiny by cer­tain cir­cles and calls for reg­u­la­tory in­ter­ven­tion are grow­ing louder. But in the end this hurts work­ers too. Flex­i­bil­ity and open­ness must be pre­served. This cause is cham­pi­oned by the Swiss fed­er­a­tion of em­ploy­ers SAV.</p>

Read more about the history of the Hôtel du Théatre

Free En­ter­prise

Free en­ter­prise is the foun­da­tion on which Switzer­land's eco­nomic suc­cess is built. Good ideas re­quire free­dom to un­fold. There­fore, gov­ern­ment should not in­ter­vene with leg­is­la­tion in the free mar­ket ex­cept to pro­tect eco­nomic free­dom or prop­erty rights. Only where mar­kets fail should gov­ern­ment step in. And even then rules need to be as nim­ble and prac­ti­cal as pos­si­ble. En­force­ment must be non-bu­reau­cratic and en­ter­prise-friendly. Un­nec­es­sary or ex­ag­ger­ated con­trols are like poi­son for Swiss pros­per­ity.

A stu­dent at the ETH Zürich de­vel­ops an in­no­v­a­tive lens. Now he is about to con­quer the global mar­kets.

Read more about the history of Optotune

Macro-Eco­nomic Sta­bil­ity

<p>A suc­cess­ful eco­nomic pol­icy cre­ates an en­vi­ron­ment that al­lows com­pa­nies to in­vest long-term. Legal cer­tainty, sta­ble so­cial and po­lit­i­cal con­di­tions, and an in­de­pen­dent mon­e­tary pol­icy are basic con­di­tions for the sus­tain­able eco­nomic suc­cess of a coun­try. This is es­pe­cially true for Switzer­land. As a small na­tion with­out nat­ural re­sources it can only se­cure and ex­pand its pros­per­ity if it cre­ates a busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment that al­lows in­no­va­tion to thrive and com­pa­nies to grow. This works if the busi­ness com­mu­nity and the pop­u­la­tion act re­spon­si­bly and co­op­er­ate in the com­mon in­ter­est.</p>

Func­tion­ing Mar­ket Econ­omy

Com­pe­ti­tion works in Switzer­land: good ideas al­ways make their way. The sup­ply of goods and ser­vices is as good as any­where in the world. To en­sure the smooth func­tion­ing of our mar­ket econ­omy, we con­tin­u­ously de­ter­mine which ser­vices should be pro­vided by gov­ern­ment and the pri­vate sec­tor. The gov­ern­ment has the im­por­tant task to pro­mote com­pe­ti­tion wher­ever pos­si­ble, even across our bor­ders. Iso­la­tion and pro­tec­tion­ism are no recipe for a pros­per­ing and in­ter­na­tion­ally com­pet­i­tive busi­ness lo­ca­tion.

My Ger­man and French guests as­sure me they will pay more for bet­ter ser­vice.

Read more about the history of the Hôtel du Théatre