Language

Official language
German 62.6%, French 22.9%, Italian 8.2%, Romansh 0.05%

T-index. 0.86%

T-Index ranks countries according to their potential for online sales.

English
High proficiency (EF) – 25 out of 112 countries/regions in the world- 21/35 position in Europe.

Demography

Capital: Switzerland is a federal republic composed of 26 cantons, with federal authority centered in Bern.
Currency: Swiss franc
Population: 8.70 m
Population density: 220/km2

Economy

GDP: 704.83 billion USD (2020)
GDP per capita: 93,457.4 USD ‎(2020) ‎
Exports: $305 billion (2020)

Statistics

Internet users: 98% penetration, 8.57 million
Unemployment rate: 4.4% (2020)
Urbanisation: 73.8% (2020)
Literacy: 99% (2020)

Conventions

Numbering system
Arabic numerals with comma as decimal separator
Date format: dd – mm – yyyy
Time: yyyy-mm-dd / dd-mm-yyyy
Country code: 0041

Economy

Imports
$302 billion (2020).  Gold ($87.4B), Packaged Medicaments ($26.6B), Blood, antisera, vaccines, toxins and cultures ($11.8B), Cars ($9.65B), and Jewellery ($7.83B), importing mostly from Germany ($62.7B), Italy ($25.1B), United States ($19.7B), France ($16.3B), and China ($14.9B).

Financial inclusion factors (over 15 years of  age)
• 98% have an account with a financial institution
• 65% 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 (2020, World Bank).

Exports
$305 billion (2020). Gold ($68.5B), Packaged Medicaments ($46.3B), Blood, antisera, vaccines, toxins and cultures ($30.2B), Base Metal Watches ($11.5B), and Nitrogen Heterocyclic Compounds ($11.4B), exporting mostly to United States ($62B), Germany ($49.2B), China ($17.3B), France ($16.3B), and United Kingdom ($14.5B).

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 84.2 out of 100) ranked 2nd out of 45 European countries ranked 4 out of 186 countries worldwide (2019, 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