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Comment by elorant | Hacker News Reader

Switzerland has some of the largest corporations in the world in the pharmaceutical industry, and they're by far leaders in the watchmaking industry. Banking isn't the only business they rely on.

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I know about Basel and its pharma industry that is still top-notch, but as for banking they seem to go down rather quickly even if the effect is not going to be felt for the next decade outside negative interest rates. As for watches, I am not sure that is very relevant since smartphones, outside quickly converting expensive watches into cash while on the run from authorities...

> ...as for banking they seem to go down rather quickly...

I do think that Switzerland might have a problem with banks soon or later, but currently I don't see such situation clearly developing (rather more in Germany with Commerzbank & Deutsche Bank?).

And then there is pharma, high tech and companies like Logitech. Switzerland is doing just fine.

Just out of curiosity, which Swiss-grown high-tech is there? I know only of Sauber Group.

There are lots, you just never hear of them, because those are "only" small to medium sized companies.

That's one, also the founders tend to be quite modest.

I recently learned about SonarSource: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SonarSource

Here is a swiss manufacturer. A run-of-the-mill company with $1/2 billion in annual sales in a high margin, high tech area.

https://www.maxongroup.com/maxon/view/content/product-overvi...

https://www.oerlikon.com/en/industries/aerospace-industry/

The medical-related area has probably others, but I personally have no clue about that.

Another example is ABB

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