2019 Foreign Economic Policy Report: focus on digital transformation

Bern, 15.01.2020 - On 15 January, the Federal Council adopted the 2019 Foreign Economic Policy Report. The report’s featured topic addresses the importance of digital transformation for Switzerland’s foreign economic activities.

Last year the global economic environment was dominated by uncertainty. Switzerland was also affected.

Digital transformation is having a profound and fundamental impact on the global economy. A chapter in the report is dedicated to this topic. Digital transactions play a key role in today’s economic exchanges. While a proportion of trade transactions already take place exclusively in digital form, digital technologies are also shaking up the ‘analogue’ economy. In international rankings on digital transformation, Switzerland currently receives positive assessments. This is in part due to the country’s attractive framework conditions, such as high-quality communications and power grid infrastructure.

Switzerland is a medium-sized economy with a small domestic market and therefore needs to maintain a high degree of economic competitiveness. As a strong location in terms of research and education with a flexible labour market, the country is well positioned. Yet there are major challenges in terms of foreign economic policy.

One of the main challenges is access to the European single market. In addition, Switzerland is committed to global economic relations with strong legal safeguards. To that end, it seeks to ensure that appropriate rules and standards are in place at the multilateral level and that these are enforced. Switzerland therefore attaches great importance to reforms to the WTO to secure and further develop the multilateral trading system. Further important pillars of the country’s foreign economic policy include the continued development of the free trade network and other improvements to market access.

The Executive Summary and the chapter on the report’s featured topic are available online in English.

Address for enquiries

GS-EAER Communications
Tel. 058 462 20 07
info@gs-wbf.admin.ch