Swiss perspectives in 10 languages

Swiss government eyes trade deal with Washington

Selection of Swiss cheeses
The US market is an excellent opportunity for Swiss cheese exports according to Finance Minister Maurer. Keystone

Finance Minister Ueli Maurer says the government is pushing for negotiations with the United States on a bilateral free trade agreement.

Maurer said he was optimistic that the Swiss government would approve a mandate for talks before the end of the year as the moment was right for a new attempt after a previous effort failed more than ten years ago.

“The US export market is very interesting for Swiss farmers,” Maurer told the Swiss News Agency on the sidelines of the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

He was referring to strong opposition in 2006 by the Swiss agriculture sector.

The state secretary in the Swiss economics ministry is expected in Washington for exploratory talks next week.

Indonesia

Meanhwile, Economics Minister Johann Schneider-Ammann says negotiations between Indonesia and the four nation European Free Trade Association (EFTA), including Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein, are in the final phase.

Schneider-Ammann told SRF public radio that he agreed with his Indonesian counterpart to conclude the negotiations by the end of November.

Over the past few months, a number of obstacles over fishery products and palm oil have delayed a successful conclusion of the talks underway since 2011.

Merchandise trade between the EFTA and Indonesia amounted to $2.3 billion (CHF2.3 billion) in 2017.

More
Opinion

More

Opportunity knocks for Switzerland in the US

This content was published on You can’t blame Trump for everything. EU politicians, US journalists and Chinese functionaries happily portray him as digging free trade’s grave – and it’s true that his wildly distributed punitive tariffs certainly make exchanges between countries harder.  Now, however, the drawbacks of Trump’s import-export dealings are becoming apparent: he agreed to sign a free-trade pact…

Read more: Opportunity knocks for Switzerland in the US
More

In compliance with the JTI standards

More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative

You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here. Please join us!

If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR