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Swiss Canton seeks investments from India

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CIOL Bureau
New Update

PUNE, INDIA: Development Economic Western Switzerland (DEWS ) attracted investments from 20 Indian companies in the last 12 months, of which four to five are from the IT sector.

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Next on DEW's target is accelarating this pace to four to five companies every month. “We are talking to around 100 companies currently, which will hopefully materialize this year or next year,” said Jacques Pasche, directeur general and CEO of DEWS.

Engineering companies have started looking towards Switzerland as a trading hub. “Last two years have seen sustained interest from India in sectors like IT, Biotech and Pharma, owing to the excellent IPR regime and favorable taxation climate,” said Ravi Chaudhry, director - India.

DEWS comprises Cantons of Vaud, Valais, Neuchatel and Jura, and has gained recognition as micro-technologies center, IT hub and bio-valley of Europe. DEWS is on an ambitious initiative to assist international companies in setting up base and global operations in the region and is woo R&D centers, software and biotech companies in the process.

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So far IT companies who have set anchor here, include international majors like Autodesk SA, Cisco, Sun Microsystems, Covansys Europe SA, PSINet Europe with Indian majors like Polaris Europe SA, Neilsoft Europe SA and Tata Infotech. There are many microengineering and biotech firms as well.

DEWS intends to offer free services to Indian companies in areas of company registration, business premise location and leasing, work and residence permits, tax exemption rulings, and talent recruitment and training.

A citation from an Arthur D. Little study on HQ location in Europe points out that 55 per cent of global companies preferred Switzerland as the most attractive place followed by 16 per cent for UK and 16 per cent for Belgium.

Incidentally, Switzerland claims the longest working hours (1868 hours vis-à-vis 1688 in Germany), investor-friendly labor laws, zero to 11 per cent tax rates, 17 per cent social security contribution (as against 45 per cent in Germany), $80 per sq m per annum office rentals and $45 per sq m per annum as lowest factory rentals in Europe and Institutes like Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne and Institute of Artificial Intelligence, Martigny.

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