Whether you’re cooking curry or spring rolls, shushis or pad thai, the Mekong Market grocery store in Ferney Voltaire carries all the dry and canned food you will need to prepare authentic asian meals. Along with all kinds of rices, in small or large bags (up to 20 kg), noodles and spices, you’ll find various vinegars, sauces, exotic beers and juices. The store also offers a selection of fresh fruits, vegetables and tofu, frozen food including raviolis, take-away Vietnamese dishes and even Asian tableware: 30 rue de Versoix, 01210 Ferney Voltaire. Tel: + 33 4 5040 4560.
Swiss exports, imports (Source: Swiss Statistical Office, 20.10.11)
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Swiss exports and imports continued to expand in the first nine months of 2011, but with the rate of growth slowing down steadily and “losing strength” and reflecting the state of the world economy, the Swiss Statistical Office said Thursday morning in a press release.
Exports grew by 2.4 percent from January to September, CHF147 billion, with growth in the first two quarters but a decline in the third.
The growth was achieved despite falling prices, down 10.7 percent in real terms, although without including pharmaceuticals, prices fell by 7 percent.
Imports rose in the first nine months but by a weak 1 percent.
Switzerland showed a positive trade balance from January to September of CHF16.7b, a one-year 14.7 percent increase. A CHF17b surplus with Asia offset the CHF16.3b deficit with the European Union.
A bright spot: orders from Italy, France and Germany rose by 4 percent in September.
Choppy waters for Swiss but particularly French shares 12 September
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – Worries over the sovereign debt and financial sector woes in the euro zone hit world stocks Friday 9 September, and the slide continued Monday, with European stock markets down by 2.5 to 4.1 percent in the morning. The SMI, Swiss index of star shares, suffered less than most, down 2.3 percent.
Asian markets, too, were down, but the damage was contained with China and Singapore taking holidays.
The euro fell to a six-month low of $1.35 before rising again, but it hit a 10-year low against the yen.
The reasons are varied, from rumours that proved untrue that Greece would default over the weekend to UK to stories circulating that French banks will be downgraded by Moody’s. Le Temps reports that French bank shares fell by 10 percent Monday.
The Financial Times summarizes a long list of investors’ concerns saying it is “a difficult batch of headline risks for traders to navigate, especially given that beneath the surface of all the eurozone kerfuffle lurks the concerns about an already slowing global economy.”
Citigroup has pared 45 percent from earnings estimates for US banks, in part because of the fall in global equities, reports Bloomberg. The FTSE world index has slipped nearly 20 percent since May.
The Swiss franc was just above the limit set by the Swiss National Bank against the euro, at 1.2058 Monday early morning.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Europe’s largest retail bank, HSBC in the UK, announced job cuts 1 August that will reached 30,000 by the end of 2013, joining Switzerland’s UBS and Credit Suisse, as well as other large banks that have announced major staffing cuts in the past two weeks as financial markets fail to bounce back as expected from the 2008-09 global economic crisis. Credit Suisse expects to cut 2,000 jobs and UBS has not yet confirmed the number it will eliminate.
The HSBC job cuts were announced along with financial results that show a 36 percent increase in profits to $9.22 billion from $6.76 billion a year earlier. The bank is preparing to meet higher capital requirements under new Basel III world bank regulations.
Business Week reports that HSBC’s proportion of profits from Asian business rose to 76 percent, up nearly 10 percent compared to a year ago, while the share of its expenses based in Asia were just over 46 percent. Job cuts will occur in its offices worldwide, but the bank is likely to be hiring in Asia.
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Chemical products that pose a serious health danger are parading as “herbal” weight loss products, sold online and imported illegally, warns Swissmedic, which has responsibility in Switzerland for overseeing medical and therapeutic products.
Two ingredients in particular, Sibutramine and Rimonabant, both of which are banned substances in Europe, were found in 122 samples of various slimming products that were seized in 2010.
The products were seized by customs as illegal imports.
Only six products were actually “herbal” and only 10 were “genuine medicinal products”, while four contained active substances that were not the ones listed, including two that have not been tested on humans.
Yves Robert-Charrue. Bank Julius Baer
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – Bank Julius Baer has been awarded a license for $100 million for a China fund, six months after it received a Hong Kong license, giving Switzerland’s largest private bank a stronger foothold in the Asian market, Reuters reports Monday 23 May. “The QFII quota, granted by the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE), China’s currency regulator, would allow Julius Baer to buy Chinese stocks and bonds under the Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor (QFII) scheme,” according to the news agency.
The QFII quota was awarded seven months after the bank became the 147th bank to be licensed by Hong Kong‘s monetary authority, in October 2010, four years after setting up a representative office in Hong Kong, which then became a full branch late in 2010.
China said in April that it had approved 109 QFII licenses, according to the Wall St Journal.
The bank now considers Asia its second base, and it has said it hopes to open a Shanghai representative office this year.
New CEO for Switzerland named Friday
Yves Robert-Charrue was named chief executive of the bank’s new Region Switzerland Friday 20 May. The single market region will allow to be “the alternative for Swiss-domiciled clients seeking a first-class private banking relationship,” according to Group CEO Boris Collodi.
The 37-year-old Robert-Charrue has, since 2010, been head of the Investment Solutions Group and a member of the executive board.
Tree trimmers in Geneva, Switzerland (photo ©2011 Rohit Acharya, http://www.flickr.com/photos/rhohit)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Developed countries in particular are not yet out of the woods following the global economic recession, where jobs are concerned. The ILO (International Labour Organization) in Geneva says in its 2011 Annual Report, published 24 January, that unemployment remains high for the third year in a row and in developing economies the level of “vulnerable employment and working poverty” remains high.
Workers in vulnerable employment, “defined as the sum of own-account workers and contributing family workers, are less likely to have formal work arrangements, and are therefore more likely to lack elements associated with decent employment such as adequate social security and recourse to effective social dialogue mechanisms” according to the ILO.
“These trends stand in stark contrast to the recovery seen in several key macroeconomic indicators: global GDP (gross domestic production), private consumption, investment, and international trade and equity markets have all recovered in 2010, surpassing pre-crisis levels,” the report notes.
Global unemployment in 2010 was 205 million, unchanged from 2009, and 27.6 million more than on the eve of the global economic crisis in 2007, the report indicates. The ILO projects a very slight improvement to a rate of 6.1 per cent, equivalent to 203.3 million unemployed, through 2011.
EU and developed countries have brunt of unemployment Read more…
2010 equal to 2005 and 1998, confirms global warming trend
Extreme weather events listed but no direct link made
Australian desert (photo: ©2010 Peter Brodbeck, flickr)
(video, El Niño, La Niña) Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Those who thought 2010 was hotter than usual were right: it was one of the warmest years on record, sharing the top hot slot with 2005 and 1998, the WMO (World Meteorological Organization) said in Geneva 20 January.
But if you were sitting in Scandinavia or the eastern US in December 2010 you’ll be right in thinking you’ve just experienced exceptional cold, with parts of Norway and Sweden having temperatures -10C below normal.
Eastern Canada and Greenland had unusually warm weather in December, however.
Higher temperatures did not affect the world evenly, but 2010 was exceptionally warm in much of Africa, southern and western Asia, Greenland and Arctic Canada, “with many parts of these regions having their hottest years on record” since the start of what the WMO calls instrumental climate records.
Greenland's snow and ice suffered from unusually warm weather in Decembe 2010
“The 2010 data confirm the Earth’s significant long-term warming trend,” WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud said in a statement. “The 10 warmest years on record have all occurred since 1998.”
The WMO is a United Nations organization that provides a place where member states’ national weather and meteorological services work together.
Arctic sea-cover at all-time low in December
Swiss watch industry leads steady rise in exports
Positive October trade balance of CHF2.1 billion
Nick Hayek, chairman, Swatch Group
Biel/Bienne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Nick Hayek, president of the executive group management board of the Swatch Group, showed off the new line of Ladymatic watches by Omega, one of the group’s brands, and was upbeat about the company’s performance when he met with a group of foreign journalists at Omega’s offices in Biel/Bienne.
“How many people are there in Vietnam?” he asked a Vietnam News Agency journalist. More than 80 million, Hayek quickly answered himself. “Our plan is to sell a watch every one of those 80 million” because of the market’s good potential.
Omega's new Ladymatic line breaks the mould: watches are chunky and heavy and "beautiful" says Hayek
Swatch shares closed 2.6 percent higher Thursday 18 October.
They were part of a strong upswing that saw Swiss prices at their highest in 11 weeks when the federal customs office reported that Swiss exports rose 7.8 percent (corrected for one working day less than in 2009) in October, over the same period a year earlier.
The watch industry led the way, up 18 percent compared to October 2009 and up 20 percent from January to October 2010.
The editor enjoys a too-short trial of a new Ladymatic watch by Omega
Asia and Latin America saw the strongest growth in Swiss exports in October. “We’re certainly going to expand more in China. The Chinese are enormously aware of value, of the substance of a brand,” he notes. “The Chinese understand and are sensitive to history.” Omega, he recalls, supplied the first clocks for the Chinese railways.
Hayek says that the company is doing well since the death in June 2010 of his father, Swatch founder Nicolas Hayek. “We all wish he could have continued working with us for 100 years,” but he prepared the company to continue well once he was gone, says son Nick, because he emphasized teamwork.
Hayek is pleased with the rebound in watch sales, but says he would like to see more competition within the industry, notably for movements, where Swatch’s ETA supplies the industry almost singlehandedly. ETA’s domination has been a subject of heated debate and an announcement by the group in 2008 that it would sell movements only to its own group’s brands caused an outcry. The Swiss Competition Office began to investigate the case in September 2009.
“An industry needs competition to have innovation,” Hayek insists, saying the group’s dominance should change.
Click on images to view larger
A series of floods and landslides in Asia have taken the lives of at least 100 people (figure updated Wednesday 6 October).
Most of the deaths occurred in Indonesia, where villages were struck by landslides resulting from days of torrential rains.
There have also been deaths reported in Vietnam, the Chinese island of Hainan where over 60,000 people had to be evacuated, and in West Papua where several provinces are isolated.
Additional details on: Yahoo news,
In Geneva you don't have to be a millionaire to pay a fortune for housing, but being wealthy eases the pain
[Video]London, England (GenevaLunch.com) - Luanda in Angola is the world’s most expensive city for expatriates, according to the latest Cost of Living Survey from Mercer. Tokyo is in second position, with Ndjamena in Chad in third place. Moscow is in fourth position followed by Geneva in fifth.
Moscow (4), Geneva (5) and Zurich (8) are the most expensive European cities, followed by Copenhagen (10).
Karachi, Pakistan, is ranked as the world’s least expensive city for expats. The survey found that Luanda is three times as costly as Karachi.
The survey covers 214 cities across five continents and measures the comparative cost of over 200 items in each location, including housing, transport, food, clothing, household goods and entertainment. It is the world’s most comprehensive cost of living survey and is used to help multinational companies and governments determine compensation allowance for their expatriate employees. New York is used as the base city for the index and all cities are compared against New York.
Currency movements are measured against the US dollar. The cost of housing—often the biggest expense for expats—plays an important part in determining where cities are ranked.
Report adds new “debt stress test”
Stephane Garelli, IMD, who leads the report team
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – IMD’s annual competitiveness report on countries highlights shifts in the past year, with some Asian countries looking stronger, the US slipping, China leading the emerging economies and Germany leading the traditional ones.
Switzerland remained in fourth place, having weather the global economic crisis better than most European countries due to a strong combination of the “labour market, fiscal policy, education and innovation capacity.” The report notes, however, that “business executives believe that its image abroad was tarnished and the risk factor in the financial system was magnified.”
A new feature in 2010 is a “debt stress test” that focuses attention on the government debt crisis that is not likely to disappear soon. IMD notes, in a press release on the report, that “budget deficits are soaring and it is estimated that the average debt of the G20 nations, for example, will climb from 76 percent of their combined GDP in 2007 to 106 percent in 2010. Although the ‘great recession’ is over, the consequences of the crisis will continue to be felt for quite some time.”
The US slipped in the rankings but in fact the first three places were virtually a tie, with Hong Kong and Singapore just nudging ahead. Two other Asian nations that showed strong improvements in 2009, however, were Malaysia and Taiwan.
The top 10 (last year’s ranking in parentheses):
- 100 points – (3) SINGAPORE
- 99.357 – (2) HONG KONG
- 99.091 – (1) USA
- 96.126 – (4) SWITZERLAND
- 92.172 – (7) AUSTRALIA
- 90.893 – (6) SWEDEN
- 90.459 – (8) CANADA
- 90.441 – (23) TAIWAN
- 89.987 – (11) NORWAY
- 87.228 – (18) MALAYSIA
Inter-Europe air traffic remains weak
Worldwide improvement is concentrated in Asia, Latin America
Brands, not flags, must guide the industry to profitability, says Iata head
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The airline industry is expected to have an overall loss of $9.4 billion for 2009, according to Iata, the Geneva-based air transport industry organization, which released new figures Thursday 11 March. The loss is lower than Iata’s December projected figure of $11b. “More significantly, we now forecast smaller losses in 2010 of $2.8b, compared to our previous forecast of $5.6b.”
The improvement is due to year-end growth in traffic that carried on into January, but it was much led by Asia and Latin America, with the US and Europe far more sluggish.
Growth in passenger demand, world airlines 2006-2009 (Iata)
Click on image to view larger
“We can be optimistic but with due caution,” Giovanni Bisignani, CEO and director-general says. “Important risks remain. Oil is a wild-card, over-capacity is still a danger, and costs must be kept under control – throughout the value chain and with labour.”
Asian and Latin American carriers posted international passenger demand gains of 6.5 percent and 11.0 percent respectively in January. North America and Europe lagged, with international passenger demand gains of 2.1 and 3.1 percent.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - World media have been celebrating International Women’s Day for much of the week, with stories about the progress made by women in the past 100 years, particularly in politics and economically. But women are conspicuously small in numbers on Forbes latest list of the world’s rich. You have to move beyond the first 10 to find a woman, and most of those in the top 20 are from the same US family, the Waltons of Walmart fame. Birgit Rausing, whose money comes from Tetra Laval, is described by Forbes as “living quietly in Switzerland”. She is part of a very small group of wealthy women whose money has almost always been inherited, the magazine notes, while men who have made their fortunes do so in family businesses to a much smaller extent.
Vevey, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Food multinational Nestlé says its profits fell by more than 40 percent in 2009 compared to the previous year largely because of a hefty profit in 2008 from the sale of Alcon eye-care company. Net profit in 2009 was CHF10.4 billion, down from CHF18b in 2008.
Sales slipped from CHF109.9b to CHF107.6b but the company says that new markets, particularly in Africa and Asia, are growing well. CEO Paul Bulcke, Nestlé chief executive struck a positive note: “With organic growth of 4.1 percent achieved in last year’s challenging environment, we were able to grow substantially faster than our industry.”
Muttenz, Basel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Chemicals company Clariant has announced layoffs of 500 employees, 400 of which are in Switzerland, as it continues to restructure. The company suffered sharp losses in 2008, largely due to a sudden drop in the auto industry. The company has since then shed more than 3,000 jobs. It is now moving its textile dyes and textile chemicals division to Asia. The company employed 1,200 people in Switzerland at the end of 2009.
The company’s sales were down 18 percent in Swiss francs in 2009 over the previous year, to CHF 6.6 billion. Clariant reduced its net debt to CHF545 million from CHF1.2b at the end of 2008. Net debt divided by equity was at 29 percent by the end of 2009, well down from the 61% at the end of 2008.
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Nineteen countries have now secured their places in the Fifa World Cup finals to be held in South Africa in 2010 after the penultimate games in the qualification series. In the African group Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire are through and six places are up for grabs. Australia, Japan and the two Koreas take the Asian places with one more team entering a playoff with New Zealand. Seven of the 13 European places are decided:
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – World trade rebounded sharply in the second quarter, according to World Trade Organization (WTO) figures just released. World exports (which are also world imports) increased by 7.7 percent in the second quarter of 2009, compared with the first quarter, and reached $2.88 trillion in the second quarter, up 6.6 percent overall.
The answer to the question of who is the world’s leading exporter was announced 8 September by the German Federal Statistical Office (Destatis). China’s export figures for July are $105,420 billion, an increase of 10.4 percent over June’s figures. Germany announced that exports were € 70.5 billion, or $102,155b. This is an unadjusted increase of 6.6 percent from June 2009. Both countries were neck-and-neck in June.
Quarterly world merchandise export developments, 2005-09 (2005Q1=100, in current US dollars), WTO
All of the WTO reporting regions show a rebound in the first quarter.
Storms in Asia are causing deaths and massive damage, with nine people dying in a storm-provoked mudslide in Japan and three dead in China in the wake of typhoon Morakot. The BBC carries startling footage of a several-stories beachfront hotel tumbling into the sea at the hot springs resort of Chihpen after its foundations were pulled away by the typhoon. The hotel was reportedly evacuated before it collapsed. ABC news Australia, Xinhua
Road building project in Nepal, © 2009 SDC Nepal
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland announced that it was upgrading its diplomatic presence in Nepal to ambassadorial level. Thomas Gass, currently Switzerland’s ambassador to the UN in New York, will take up his post in the capital Kathmandu early August to coincide with the 50 years celebration of development cooperation with Nepal later this month.
The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation in Nepal (SDC and SDC/Nepal) has concentrated on projects such as infrastructure and forestry, and has financed the upkeep of more than 3,000 bridges in the remote Himalayan country. Since the 1990s, SDC has supported the peace process and good governance. Nepal is one of Asia’s poorest countries with a per capita income of less than $350, and has been wracked by internal dissensions that saw the fall of the monarchy and the establishment of a democratic regime in 2008.
Swiss foreign trade, climbing down
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Swiss foreign trade plummeted 16 percent in the first half of the year, according to figures published 21 July by the Swiss Federal Customs Administration (SFCA). Both import and export figures dropped to levels last seen in 2006, and the second quarter figures were much worse than those for the first quarter of the year. The fall in exports is the worst six month period decline recorded.
The balance of trade was CHF9 billion, down 10 percent over a year, a fall explained by an unusual, massive import of gold jewelry for remelting, from Vietnam.
The longest solar eclipse of the 21st century was visible along a 155-mile wide stretch of Asia Wednesday 22 July: from India’s holy Hindu city of Varanasi through Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar and along China’s Yangtze River to the Pacific. Coastal areas had cloud cover, but much of the rest of the area had clear skies and the eclipse was easily visible. For scientists in India and China the eclipse provided a rare opportunity to do solar experiments, although Chinese scientists said the cloud cover reduced some of the options. Reuters, Times of India, Xinhua
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The number of suspect cases of illegal medicine imports rose by 92 percent in the first half of 2009, with half of them coming from Asia and the majority of those coming from India. “Erectile dysfunction” drugs were the most common, accounting for 24 percent of the total of 568 shipments confiscated by Swiss customs, with slimming drugs and muscle enhancers 14 and 12 percent respectively.
Slimming drugs are being illegally imported at a higher rate and Swissmedic, the body charged with testing products for customs, says that many of these do not contain what they say: vegetable-based products sometimes contain synthetics which can be dangerous and cause serious side effects.
PetroChina is reported by the Financial Times to be buying a 45 percent stake in Singapore Petroleum Company, noting that “the deal will be PetroChina’s first cross-border acquisition of a public company, the first Chinese takeover of a publicly listed company in Asia and the largest public takeover in Singapore since 2001.” It will reportedly pay $1 billion to Keppel Corporation, which makes oil rigs, for its entire stake in the company.
A report published 31 March by the Asian Development Bank says that Asian economic development has reached the slowest pace since the economic crisis in 1997-98, 3.4 percent, down from 6.3 percent in 2008 and 9.3 in 2007. The greatest concern is for the poor in the region, if Europe, the US and Japan do not start to recover in 2010. CNN
Title: “Asian Diplomacy” book presentation
Location: Geneva, Graduate Institute, rte de Lausanne
Link out: Click here
Description: Kishan Rana, former Ambassador of India and author of the book, presenting. Organized by Diplomatic Book Circle and the Centre for Asian Studies
Start Time: 18:00
Date: 02 Feb 2009
Sony will cut about 8,000 jobs, 4% of its workforce, in an effort to save over $1 billion. The troubled firm, whose shares have fallen 70% in 2008, is making the larges job reductions to date in Asia.
Asian markets fell sharply in trading Wednesday, reacting to the 508-piont drop Tuesday in the US Dow Jones, despite the US Federal Reserve signalling that it will likely announce a cut in interest rates. Al Jazeera
