The Swiss government will begin collecting data from commodity trading companies as the war in Ukraine highlights the importance of the sector both domestically and for foreign policy, the Federal Council said in a statement on Wednesday.
Currently there are no official figures in Switzerland on the commodity trading industry’s contribution to the country’s gross domestic product or on goods traded by locally-based companies. The government’s statistics bureau will request information from around 400 companies over the next three years, it said.
The move comes as Switzerland is juggling the implementation of Western sanctions against Russian resources with its status as a major hub for trading the country’s energy, grains and metals and a history of neutrality in international conflicts. ...