Boasting a strategic location in the heart of Europe among a host of other important advantages, Western Switzerland – comprised of the cantons of Bern, Fribourg, Vaud, Neuchâtel, Geneva, and Valais – is the perfect base for establishing an international company. As Western Switzerland’s official foreign investment promotion agency, Greater Geneva Bern area (GGBa) provides expert, tailor-made support throughout this process.

Covering almost half of Switzerland’s territory and sharing land borders with both France and Italy, as well as close proximity to Germany, Western Switzerland gives companies easy access to the 500 million consumers of the European market. Moreover, the region also counts on a multilingual and multicultural home population, 24 percent of whom are foreigners, and who represent a fantastic test market.

Other key advantages include well-developed industry clusters in a number of domains; a highly qualified, productive and multilingual workforce; consistent political stability; flexible labour laws; moderate tax rates; state-of-the-art infrastructure; a safe environment; and an exceptional quality of life.

The region’s industry expertise stretches from micro and non-technologies to life sciences, information and communications technologies, and clean technologies. There are a number of centres of excellence in these fields and a shared inter-cantonal objective to develop and maintain a competitive economy based on high value products and services. The GGBa aims to support the establishment of companies at the forefront of global innovation which can bring complementary products and services to the existing economy.