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Lucerne woos more multinationals

(chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2009-09-25 19:19

Lucerne, an area lies at the heart of Switzerland, is becoming an economic center in Europe. The area has been making supportive policies including tax cuts in a bid to attract more international companies to settle down.

Lucerne, an area lies at the heart of Switzerland, is attracting more and more multinationals to invest there.

Big-name companies including Schindler AG, RUAG Aerospace AG, Geistlich Pharma AG, Schurter AG and Hochdorf AG have already chosen it as their worldwide head office location.

With almost 12.5 percent of the world population, Europe has long been an attractive market for most of the Chinese companies, while Lucerne, based in Europe's center -- Switzerland and with convenient transportation systems and sound facilities, is and will never be missed in business people's views.

Reachable in only 45 minutes from Zurich airport, Lucerne is a pivotal hub of Europe. The area is also enjoying Switzerland's excellent traffic network, high city security, few labor strike action, competitively low tax rates, high quality schools, reliable health system and public management institutions.

Compared with other areas like Zurich or Geneva, Lucerne can meet people's expectations at relatively low living costs while enjoying all the above-mentioned advantages.

Lucerne has never stopped improving its competitiveness as a business location.

Related readings:  Lucerne Festival in Beijing 2009  Inside Switzerland  Want the world's best wages? Move to Switzerland  Switzerland 'gets a little bit larger'

The area has kept optimizing its traffic facilities and tax policies in a bid to be among the top five tax locations in Switzerland. It is now among the top destinations in Europe for low corporate tax and has also decided to reduce the tax by another 25 percent in 2010.

Multinationals with their headquarters set in Switzerland can also count on average tax rates of between 9 and 10 percent when doing major part of their businesses outside of the country. More than 30 Chinese enterprises including Huawei and Suntech have already settled down in Switzerland.

Despite economic attractiveness, Lucerne is also a multilingual pot of cultures.

The annual Chinese New Year Concert and Chinese Culture Week which take place in Park Hotel Weggis during the Chinese Spring Festival will make people feel at home. And various cultural events and festivals are also provided.

Further more, high quality international schools as well as Chinese schools in Lucerne also dismissed people's worry of children's education.

More and more companies have chosen to grow in Lucerne with their main industries including machinery equipment, food, hi-tech and tourism.

Chinese who wish to do business in Lucerne will be assisted from project launch to the implementation and beyond by the team of Business Development Lucerne, which has broad-based partnership of the canton, city, municipalities, associations and the Lucerne business community.