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Hotels call for action to stay competitive

This content was published on Feb 10, 2009 At a news conference in Bern on Monday, the association admitted that prices were higher than in neighbouring countries and put forward a number of measures to maintain the country’s attractiveness. As an example, a study from the BAK Basel Economics research group showed that prices on average in the hotel trade were 12 per…

A student’s view on architecture

This content was published on Feb 10, 2009

Ciba losses exceed SFr500 million

This content was published on Feb 10, 2009 Sales fell nine per cent to SFr5.92 billion, down from SFr6.52 billion. “Raw material costs have started to ease, but we’re not expecting market demand to show any meaningful recovery until late in 2009 at the earliest,” said CEO Brendan Cummins. In the fourth quarter Ciba posted a net loss of SFr41 million compared with…

UBS makes record SFr20 billion loss in 2008

This content was published on Feb 10, 2009 It reported on Tuesday that this was mainly due to continuing problems at its investment bank. UBS made a loss of SFr8.1 billion in the fourth quarter alone. The bank said it would cut another 2,000 jobs in the investment bank, mostly in New York and London. Staff reductions in the group totalled 1,782 in…

Price hike sparks higher cigarette sales

This content was published on Feb 9, 2009 Vendors sold around 637 million packs of cigarettes in 2008. While that is up from 2007, it is considerably less than a decade ago when consumers burned through 772 million packs. Stefan Schmidt of the Customs Office said the slight increase in sales – 2.7 per cent – probably did not signal an increase in…

The life Ticino emigrants left behind

This content was published on Feb 9, 2009

Swiss chocolate proves to be crisis-resistant

This content was published on Feb 9, 2009 Sales rose equally at home and abroad in 2008, Chocosuisse, the association representing Swiss chocolate manufacturers, said on Monday. The 18 producers saw sales increase by two per cent on 2007 to 184,969 tons, with turnover improving by 9.3 per cent to SFr1.818 billion ($1.56 billion). More than 60 per cent of all the chocolate…

Peering at the dawn of the universe

This content was published on Feb 8, 2009 Lilly, professor of astronomy at the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, gave a keynote speech on Thursday on the importance of the Big Bang theory at the Swiss launch in Bern of the International Year of Astronomy. Initiated by the International Astronomical Union and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco), the…

Snow buffers ski industry against crisis

This content was published on Feb 7, 2009 Around 100 specialists from Europe and the United States, who recently met in the Swiss resort of Zermatt, found that while most sectors of the economy were affected by the global downturn, the ski industry was still solid. “The season is going very well and, given the number of reservations, we know it will continue…

Downturn has greater impact than expected

This content was published on Feb 6, 2009 That is the conclusion of the KOF Swiss Economic Institute. The results of its latest surveys were published on Friday. Production in all fields, KOF said, slowed, stagnated or sank in the 4th quarter of 2008. This hit exports and banks particularly hard. For the first half of 2009 none of the sectors are expecting…

Internal: Archive

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