Swiss Economics Minister Couchepin holds talks in U.S.

Swiss Economics Minister Pascal Couchepin was meeting senior United States government representatives in Washington on Monday as part of an official visit aimed at expanding and charting future relations between Switzerland and the U.S.

Swiss Economics Minister Pascal Couchepin was meeting senior United States government representatives in Washington on Monday as part of an official visit aimed at expanding and charting future relations between Switzerland and the U.S.

A Swiss economics ministry spokesman said the discussions were mainly dealing with the nuts and bolts of a U.S.-Swiss economics commission, which U.S. Vice President Al Gore and Swiss President Ruth Dreifuss agreed to set up when they held talks on the fringes of the World Economic Forum in the Swiss mountain resort of Davos in January.

That meeting was seen in Switzerland as signalling an easing of transatlantic relations, which had been rather strained over the issue of Holocaust-era Jewish assets in Swiss banks and Switzerland’s business dealings with Nazi Germany during World War II.

At the time, several U.S. banks and politicians warned Swiss banks of a boycott unless they showed more willingness to come clean on how many dormant assets were still in Swiss bank accounts.

The Swiss economics ministry said late last week that Couchepin would explore in his talks how economic relations could be improved, both on a bilateral level and at the World Trade Organisation.

The U.S. is Switzerland’s most important trading partner outside Europe and in 1998 alone absorbed 11 percent of all Swiss exports. Swiss investments in the U.S totalled over SFr57 billion ($38 billion) in 1997, making it the leading non-European investment market for Swiss companies.

Couchepin’s talks will also address the upcoming ministerial conference of the WTO, the Geneva-based world trade watchdog.

The WTO conference in Seattle in November will be chaired by Barshefsky, who said the meeting of 150 nations would inaugurate “global negotiations which will shape world trade as we move to the next century.”

The U.S. is widely expected to call for further opening markets in goods, services and agriculture.


From staff with wire reports.