Swiss business federation chief warns Switzerland is losing competitiveness

Outgoing Economiesuisse President warns of a backlog of reforms Keystone-SDA

Christoph Mäder, the outgoing chair of economiesuisse, the Swiss Business Federation, has warned that Switzerland is losing ground to rival economies when it comes to competitiveness.

He said the Swiss government has shown little appetite for measures to strengthen the country’s business environment.

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Many people in Switzerland now take it for granted that the country will “almost automatically” rank among the world’s most competitive economies, Mäder said in an interview published in TA Media newspapers on Wednesday.

Mäder is stepping down this month and will be succeeded by Silvan Wildhaber at the helm of the business umbrella organisation.

He warned that such complacency was dangerous. “Countries such as Ireland and Denmark are making significant gains. We need to measure ourselves against Europe’s top performers, not just our immediate neighbours.”

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Mäder said Switzerland faces a backlog of overdue reforms. “Yet the government has shown no sign that it is willing to tackle these challenges with the urgency they require,” he said. One example is pension reform. He described the decision not even to discuss the retirement age as part of the next AHV reform package as “irresponsible, to put it mildly”.

On immigration, Mäder argued that Switzerland should address what he sees as the root cause of the issue. He said asylum seekers are driving much of the public unease over immigration. Although asylum-related migration accounts for only a small share of overall immigration, he said it attracts a disproportionate amount of attention.

He acknowledged, however, that labour migration to Switzerland had reached a critical level in recent years. “But this type of immigration is likely to ease anyway if our competitiveness continues to weaken. I wouldn’t be surprised if demand for newcomers began to fall,” he said.

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Translated from German, reviewed by an English Department journalist.