Being the only region located in the south of Alps and an Italian speaking region, Ticino harmoniously matches Swiss accuracy and precision with Italian fl exibility and life style, thus combining excellence and creativity, both oriented to a smart development.

Thanks to the beauty of the landscape of its lake, river and mountains, and the mild climate, Ticino has become a tourist destination of excellence. Since a long time, the administration of the region has been active in diversifying the offer and improving the service quality, in order to satisfy the whole set of tourist needs. This aspect became particularly important under the light of the International competition in this sector of the last decade. Recently, the development of the conference tourism has been strategically supported, and many congress accommodation facilities have been built, thus positing Lugano at the top of the list in this category and among the main congress destinations around Switzerland and Europe.

On the economic level, even though fi nancial services have always been an important development motive, the region has been able to differentiate its activities, and, along with tourism, which still remains one of the pillars of the regional economy, a solid industrial reality developed. This reality includes innovative companies, which export their highly-valued products and services all around the world. The success of the region is ruled by a range of factors. Certainly, the politic, economic and social stability shall be mentioned at the top of the list. It is this stability which allows the enterprises to operate in a quiet and regular business environment. TRANSPORTS - The strategic location in the heart of Europe represents the right opportunity for companies to find the ideal outlet toward Middle-North European markets. The value of the geographical central location is increased by an excellent mobility system, characterized by efficient motorway and railway systems, closeness to important international company, airports (the airport of Milano Malpensa is just one hour far from Ticino, whereas the airport of Zurich just two hours and a half far away), and by the under-construction titanic project of AlpTransit, which will further reduce railway travelling times across the Alps. As far as the regional area is concerned, Ticino represents the centre of gravity of an outstanding critical mass on the economic level: in fact, a population of about 6 million inhabitants is located within a range of 50 kilometers around the city of Lugano: these figures represents almost the whole number of Swiss population.

EDUCATION - Job market is highly qualifi ed and fl exible, and it benefi ts from particular conditions which guarantee high productivity. The region is an excellent example of the prominent Swiss education standard, and the best evidence of this fact is represented by the destination of a quarter of the regional budget to education. Along with a solid ground formation, always been characterized by multilingualism, Ticino educational system finds its integrity on the one hand by Università della Svizzera Italiana (USI - University of Italian-speaking Switzerland) and Scuola Universitaria Professionale della Svizzera Italiana (SUPSI - Academic Professional School of Italian-speaking Switzerland), and on the other hand, by various training programs, during which students take part to an internship in a company, while attending classes. This particular system allows to provide the economic world with qualified figures oriented to practice. In the social-economic scenario, trade unions, which cooperate with the economic world, favor an appreciated “peace of work”. Moreover, Switzerland boasts a presence among the highest working-hours rates in Europe and the lowest annual lost working days rates. This is particularly due to the fact that strikes are almost non-existing, thus conferring a high level of productivity to labor force. The combination with low social contributions (the employer is in charge of about 17% of contributions) helps to debunk the myth of Swiss high costs of labor. Furthermore, in the region, salary are averagely 20% lower than in the rest of Switzerland.

RESEARCH - Between company and research exists a tight link: first-class research and development centers, which are integrated in the companies’ network, guarantee a competitive technical-scientific reality. Activities are oriented to develop further competence in new technologies and to spread this know how directly to the industrial sector, in order to add value to the production and promote technological transfer. Many facilities operate in this direction, such as: Tecnopolo (Technopole) and Biopolo (Biopole) which support biotechnologies, Centro di Studi Bancari (Bank Studies Centre), Istituto CIM per la Sostenibilità dell’Innovazione (CIM - Computer Integrated Manufacturing - Institute for Innovation Sustainability), Ticino Transfer and many others. Various prestigious International centers for the applied basic research complete the range of facilities, among which Centro Svizzero di Calcolo Scientifico (CSCS - Swiss Centre for Scientifi c Calculation), Istituto di Ricerca in Biomedicina (IRB - Research Institute in Biomedicine), Istituto Oncologico della Svizzera Italiana (IOSI - Oncologic Institute of the Italian-speaking Switzerland), and Cardiocentro Ticino (Ticino Cardiocentre). On the strategic level, recently the association AGIRE has been instituted, in order to

develop among companies and within the region know how and technologies to promote innovative processes.

PUBLIC & PRIVATE - Public administration is close to companies and contributes to the optimization of general economic conditions. Relationship between public and private fi gures are dialogue and collaboration oriented, and administrative burden of companies results to be remarkably reduced thanks to simple and quick procedures.

TAXATION - Last but not least, Ticino offers a mild taxation, both for individuals and legal person. According to a recent comparative research about general fiscal load (including different index, such as personal and corporate duties, and other taxes), the region boasts the third best fiscal load of Switzerland, ranking at 74,3% of the national average. A company pays a little bit more than 20% of taxes on the net profi t per year, and an individual having a gross profi t of CHF 200.000 pays 22,5% taxes, or 16,1% whether married with two dependent children.

According to various entrepreneurs operating within the region, the above-listed factors represent a fundamental principle for companies.

THE BUSINESS LOCATION - The economic side of Ticino groups banks, insurance institutes, trust companies and finance companies, which represent the economic centerpiece and reach the 70% of the economic activity. After Zurich and Geneva, Lugano represents the third Swiss financial centre: a number of over seventy bank institutes, which manage a capital amount of about 400 billion Swiss Francs, employ 7.700 people. By the way, employees in trust companies exceed the number of 5.000 units, whereas in the insurance field employees cover 1.000 units. If bank-controlled companies and “outsourcing” activities are taken into account, Ticino financial place on the whole employ over 15.000 people. Ticino fi nancial place could successfully deal with opposing situations, such as backlashes due to recent turbulence. The quality of its services, which allowed to overcome these challenges, represents the best credential to overtake the present International crisis. The strength of the region contributed to the reinforcing the industrial sector. Nowadays, indeed, industry located within the region is solid and strong, and it represents almost 30% of the gross domestic product (GDP), with the presence of important international companies. Thanks to important investments in research and technology, chemical-pharmaceutical sector, electromechanics, electronics, new materials and IT sector are benefiting from an excellent development. In recent years, clothing industry experienced great stirring, thus becoming a well-considered European cluster.

In the past two decades this economic branch extremely changed its structure and its nature. From a market-oriented production, developed after the II World War and characterized by products of low added value and mainly public job orders (in particular from the army), the image of the industry turned to a real European “Fashion Valley” located between Zurich and Milan, oriented mainly to export and qualifi ed by important International fashion groups, which moved their development, production, commercial, logistic and directive centres in the region. At present time, about thirty companies operates in fashion branch, employing about 2.500 people. These companies are oriented mainly to high-range production and innovative tissues development. Famous foreign groups joined traditional companies, which were already active and operated within the region as contractors: in particular, Italian, German and American companies having a prestigious and well-known brand in fashion and accessories world, among which Ermenegildo Zegna, Armani, Hugo Boss, Gucci, Guess, The North Face, Napapijri, Abercrombie&Fitch.

Renewable energies represent another fi eld which offers important development opportunities, since this theme is an issue faced by the whole planet. Competences developed by Switzerland in this fi eld, as well as the presence of important natural resources, open interesting perspectives both on the development of new technologies side and on the production of clean and renewable energy side, thus increasing the attraction for new investments. There are important examples of foreign companies operating in this cluster in Ticino, such as Pramac, which chose Ticino to realize an important plant for the production of photovoltaic modules, or Sunage, a company active in high quality and technology photovoltaic modules production, which developed an interesting collaboration with Istituto Sostenibilità Applicata all’Ambiente Costruito (ISAAC - Institute of Sustainability Applied to Built Environment), an institute heading Scuola Universitaria Professionale della Svizzera Italiana (SUPSI - Academic Professional School of Italian Switzerland) with research activities, test and certifi cations. 

Despite the consequences of the International economic and financial crisis, Ticino still holds its winning card of strategic “business location”. As far as Ticino strategic location is concerned, within Dipartimento delle Finanze e dell’Economia (DFE - Department for Finance and Economy) a team for the economic and touristic promotion is active to give value to the development opportunities of the region. For this aim, legislative tools for the increase in new industrial initiatives of high technological value are made available, through the concession of tax exemption or grants to innovative investments (www.copernico.ch). Besides, in the touristic field a financial support to investmentsin touristic facilities is provided to investors, both as grant or soft loans. Along with financial incentives, an important service of counseling is given to companies in order to favor new settlements, thus having a key role in the dialogue between institutions, entrepreneurs and research world. The aim of this activity is to match all these different realities toward a coherent entrepreneurial approach, which represents a source of development. Ticino: “Come for business, stay for the lifestyle”, “Come for the lifestyle, stay for business”!

OUR CONTACTS

UFFICIO PER LO SVILUPPO ECONOMICO

Viale Stefano Franscini, 17 - 6501 Bellinzona (CH)

Tel. +41 (0) 91 814 35 45

Fax +41 (0) 91 814 44 57

dfe-use@ti.ch

www.copernico.ch

S2B MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER 2011 | Page 14-21

Ticino: “Come for business, stay for the lifestyle”,

“Come for the lifestyle, stay for business”!