Economy

Imports
$364 billion (2022). Gold ($94.9B), Packaged Medicaments ($32.9B), Vaccines, blood, antisera, toxins and cultures ($15B), Cars ($10.9B), and Jewellery ($8.84B), importing mostly from Germany ($76.1B), United States ($37.7B), Italy ($27.8B), France ($22.3B), and China ($17.9B).
In 2022, Switzerland was the world’s biggest importer of Gold ($94.9B), Watch Straps ($677M), Watch Cases and Parts ($390M), Other Clocks and Watches ($376M), and Gold Clad Metals ($90.4M).

Financial inclusion factors (over 15 years of  age)
• 99.5% have an account with a financial institution
• 69.2% have a credit card
• 72% make online purchases

Ease of doing business
It is very easy to conduct business (rated 76.6 out of 100) ranked 22nd out of 34 OECD high income countries ranked 36th out of 190 countries worldwide (2023, World Bank).

Exports
$402 billion (2022). Gold ($101B), Vaccines, blood, antisera, toxins and cultures ($46.7B), Packaged Medicaments ($45.4B), Nitrogen Heterocyclic Compounds ($16.6B), and Base Metal Watches ($16.1B), exporting mostly to United States ($61.7B), Germany ($53.5B), China ($44.1B), Italy ($22.8B), and France ($20.4B).
In 2022, Switzerland was the world’s biggest exporter of Gold ($101B), Base Metal Watches ($16.1B), Precious Metal Watches ($9.41B), Hydrazine or Hydroxylamine Derivatives ($527M), and Other Clocks and Watches ($417M).

Main local online stores
igitec.ch, Zalando and Amazon. Other top retail sites include Nespresso, brack.ch, microspot.ch, leshop.ch, galaxus.ch, coopathome.ch and zurrose.ch.

Economic freedom
‘Free’ (rated 83 out of 100) ranked 1st out of 45 European countries and ranked 2nd out of 186 countries worldwide (2023, Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal).

Global Innovation Index
Ranked 1st out of 39 European countries, 1st out of 132 worldwide.

The Global Innovation Index captures the innovation
ecosystem performance of 132 economies and tracks the most recent global innovation trends.

Media

Media language
German, Italian, French

Information channels
Broadcasting is dominated by the public Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SRG SSR), which operates in French, German, Italian and Romansh. Most of its funding comes from TV licence fee revenues, with a smaller amount from advertising. In a 2018 referendum, more than 70% of voters rejected a proposal to abolish the licence fee. Private radio and TV stations operate at a regional level. Stations from France, Germany and Italy are widely available, often via cable and satellite. Some German commercial broadcasters provide tailored versions of their TV channels for the Swiss market. Switzerland’s press has full editorial freedom and mainly operates along regional lines which reflect linguistic divisions. Consolidation of newspaper ownership has forced some smaller papers to close, according to Freedom House.

The press

Neue Zürcher Zeitung – Zurich-based daily
Tages-Anzeiger – Zurich-based daily
Le Temps – Geneva-based daily
La Tribune de Geneve – daily
Corriere del Ticino – Lugano-based daily

Television

SRF – public, in German
RSI – public, in Italian
RTS – public, in French

Radio

SRF – public, in German
RTS – public, in French
RSI – public, in Italian
RTR – public, in Romansh

News agency

Swissinfo – news site run by public broadcaster, content in 10 languages