A Swiss franc is traded at roughly 1.09 Euros, I would say significant, sure, but not a deal breaker in high-tech industries. If we were talking about commoditized products I would have to agree but in our industries this is just not the case.
[1]: http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=EUR&to=CHF&view=10Y
> [2011 to 2015] the Euro was exchanging [at] CHF1.20. [Then] the exchange rate stabilised to between CHF1.05 and CHF1.08 to the Euro, due in large part to further intervention from the SNB which discreetly set about buying up foreign currency to ensure the franc did [rise to] new heights
https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/business/money--money--money_sw...
not really, no. the opposite, actually. while not an all time high, it is pretty high in the 10 year context and it did affect export industries.
According to Credit Suisse, "nearly all sectors of industry are affected", especially the Mechanical Engineering industry, but also Metals and Food Industries, Hotels, Catering and Retailing: https://www.credit-suisse.com/ch/en/articles/articles/news-a...
Exactly. Switzerland has just 8.5M people living there, while the US has 322M and Germany 82M. If Germany were expensive, for example, it'd still have a sizable inner-country market while Switzerland does not.
You use premium resources in Switzerland and try to sell German (or EU) resources back upon lower markets at a high enough volume and mark up to make the high market costs incidental.
Currently, the swiss Franc is very strong, therefore making any Swiss product expensive to the exterior.
It can become a huge problem for an economy based on trading with neighbors.