Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

is a

federal republic A federal republic is a federation of Federated state, states with a republican form of government. At its core, the literal meaning of the word republic when used to reference a form of government means a country that is governed by elected re ...

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

. It is one of the most developed countries in the world, with the highest nominal

wealth Wealth is the abundance of valuable financial assets or physical possessions which can be converted into a form that can be used for transactions. This includes the core meaning as held in the originating Old English word , which is from an ...

per adult and the eighth-highest

per capita ''Per capita'' is a Latin phrase literally meaning "by heads" or "for each head", and idiomatically used to mean "per person". Social statistics The term is used in a wide variety of social science, social sciences and statistical research conte ...

gross domestic product Gross domestic product (GDP) is a monetary measure of the total market value of all the final goods and services produced and rendered in a specific time period by a country or countries. GDP is often used to measure the economic performanc ...

according to the

IMF The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution funded by 191 member countries, with headquarters in Washington, D.C. It is regarded as the global lender of la ...

. Switzerland ranks at or near the top globally in several metrics of national performance, including government transparency, civil liberties, quality of life, economic competitiveness, and

human development Human development may refer to: * Development of the human body ** This includes physical developments such as growth, and also development of the brain * Developmental psychology * Development theory * Human development (economics) * Human Develo ...

. Switzerland's most important economic sector is manufacturing. Manufacturing consists largely of the production of specialist

chemicals A chemical substance is a unique form of matter with constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. Chemical substances may take the form of a single element or chemical compounds. If two or more chemical substances can be combin ...

, health and pharmaceutical goods, scientific and precision

measuring instrument Instrumentation is a collective term for measuring instruments, used for indicating, measuring, and recording physical quantities. It is also a field of study about the art and science about making measurement instruments, involving the related ...

s and

musical instrument A musical instrument is a device created or adapted to make Music, musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. A person ...

s. The largest exported goods are chemicals (34% of exported goods), machines/electronics (20.9%), and precision instruments/watches (16.9%). Exported services amount to a third of exports.Swiss Statistical Yearbook 2008 by

Swiss Federal Statistical Office The Federal Statistical Office (FSO) is a Federal agency of the Swiss Confederation. It is the statistics office of Switzerland, situated in Neuchâtel and attached to the Federal Department of Home Affairs. The Federal Statistical Office is ...

The service sector – especially

banking A bank is a financial institution that accepts Deposit account, deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital m ...

and

insurance Insurance is a means of protection from financial loss in which, in exchange for a fee, a party agrees to compensate another party in the event of a certain loss, damage, or injury. It is a form of risk management, primarily used to protect ...

tourism Tourism is travel for pleasure, and the Commerce, commercial activity of providing and supporting such travel. World Tourism Organization, UN Tourism defines tourism more generally, in terms which go "beyond the common perception of tourism as ...

, and

international organisations An international organization, also known as an intergovernmental organization or an international institution, is an organization that is established by a treaty or other type of instrument governed by international law and possesses its own leg ...

– is another important industry for Switzerland.

Largest firms

This list shows firms in the

Fortune Global 500 The ''Fortune'' Global 500, also known as Global 500, is an annual ranking of the top 500 corporations worldwide as measured by revenue. The list is compiled and published annually by '' Fortune'' magazine. Methodology Until 1989, it listed o ...

, which ranks firms by total revenues reported before 31 March 2017. Only the top five firms (if available) are included as a sample.

Notable firms

This list includes notable

companies A company, abbreviated as co., is a legal entity representing an association of legal people, whether natural, juridical or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members share a common purpose and unite to achieve specifi ...

with primary

headquarters Headquarters (often referred to as HQ) notes the location where most or all of the important functions of an organization are coordinated. The term is used in a wide variety of situations, including private sector corporations, non-profits, mil ...

located in the country. The industry and sector follow the

Industry Classification Benchmark The Industry Classification Benchmark (ICB) is an industry classification taxonomy launched by Dow Jones and FTSE in 2005 and now used by FTSE International and STOXX. It is used to segregate markets into sectors within the macroeconomy. The ICB ...

taxonomy. Organizations which have ceased operations are included and noted as defunct. File:Workspace of Louis Brandt.jpg, Historical watchmaker workbench at

Omega SA Omega SA is a Swiss luxury watchmaker based in Biel/Bienne, Switzerland. Founded by Louis Brandt in La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1848, the company formerly operated as ''Louis Brandt et Fils'' until incorporating the name ''Omega'' in 1903, becoming ' ...

. File:BIZ Basel.jpg, The

Bank for International Settlements The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) is an international financial institution which is owned by member central banks. Its primary goal is to foster international monetary and financial cooperation while serving as a bank for central bank ...

Basel Basel ( ; ), also known as Basle ( ), ; ; ; . is a city in northwestern Switzerland on the river Rhine (at the transition from the High Rhine, High to the Upper Rhine). Basel is Switzerland's List of cities in Switzerland, third-most-populo ...

. File:Schweizerische_Nationalbank_Swiss_National_Bank_in_Bern_by_Robbie_Conceptuel.png,

Swiss National Bank The Swiss National Bank (SNB; ; ; ; ) is the central bank of Switzerland, responsible for the nation's monetary policy and the sole issuer of Swiss franc banknotes. The primary goal of its mandate is to ensure price stability, while taking econ ...

headquarters in

Bern Bern (), or Berne (), ; ; ; . is the ''de facto'' Capital city, capital of Switzerland, referred to as the "federal city".; ; ; . According to the Swiss constitution, the Swiss Confederation intentionally has no "capital", but Bern has gov ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:List Of Companies Of Switzerland

Largest firms

Notable firms

See also

References