Switzerland

MIT has been ranked as the top university in the world in the latest QS World University Rankings. This marks the sixth straight year in which the Institute has been ranked in the No. 1 position. Stanford University came in at second, while prestigious Ivy League university Harvard came in third. MIT earned a perfect overall score of 100.
United Kingdom heavyweights Cambridge, Oxford, UCL and the Imperial College of London all made it inside the top 10.

Credit Suisse Group investors agreed to buy 99.2 percent of the shares on sale in a rights offering, providing 4.1 billion Swiss francs ($4.3 billion) for Chief Executive Officer Tidjane Thiam’s turnaround plan.

On Wednesday OECD released the global economic outlook in Paris. According to its forecasts over Switzerland, GDP growth is projected to rise gradually, which will reduce unemployment. The low interest rate environment is set to continue, helping to revive domestic demand. Deflation seems to have been overcome, but inflation is projected to remain low through 2018. The large current account surplus will persist.

The value of sustainable investments held by Swiss asset owners almost doubled in the past year, according to a survey by Forum Nachhaltige Geldanlagen (FNG), the association for sustainable investments in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, which reported that sustainable investments grew to CHF104bn (€95.8bn) as of year-end 2016, compared to CHF55bn a year earlier.

Switzerland is supporting free trade and globalization as the means to make the Swiss economy more prosperous and intends to extend the number of such agreements in the near future, Joerg Gasser, Switzerland’s State Secretary for International Financial Matters at the Federal Department of Finance (FDF), told media on Friday on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF).

The world’s first commercial plant for capturing carbon dioxide directly from the air opened on May 31th, refueling a debate about whether the technology can truly play a significant role in removing greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere. The Climeworks AG facility near Zurich becomes the first ever to capture CO2 at industrial scale from air and sell it directly to a buyer.

Developers say the plant will capture about 900 tons of CO2 annually – or the approximate level released from 200 cars – and pipe the gas to help grow vegetables.

The partial revision of Switzerland’s Value Added Tax Act will come into force on 1 January 2018, the Federal Council determined 2 June.

Under the new regime, to become VAT liable, global turnover should be taken into account instead of just Swiss turnover. Therefore, companies whose global turnover is at least 100,000 CHF will be liable to VAT from the first franc of turnover in Switzerland.

Hong Kong maintained its hold on the top of the rankings as the world most competitive economy once again, the annual rankings compiled by the IMD World Competitiveness Center in Switzerland shows.
Switzerland and Singapore came in second and third, while the United States ranked fourth, its lowest position in five years and down from third last year.