Switzerland

Authored by Marcia Christoff-Kurapovna via The Mises Institute,

“Switzerland will have the last word,” wrote Victor Hugo in the late 19th century.

 

“It possesses one of the most perfect forms of government in the world.” A contemporary of his, Frederick Kuenzli, a scholar of the Swiss Army, boasted: “No purer type of Republican ideals, no more fixed and devoted adherence to those ideals can be found in all the world than in Switzerland.”

This is an extract and summary from "New Gold Pool at the BIS Basle, Switzerland: Part 1" which was first published on the BullionStar.com website in mid-May. 

Part 2 of the series titled "New Gold Pool at the BIS Basle: Part 2 – Pool vs Gold for Oil" is also posted now on the BullionStar.com website.

While Donald Trump already spoiled the surprise of the contents of the latest semiannual report from the Treasury on currency manipulation, when on Wednesday he told the WSJ that China would not be named a currency manipulator, moments ago the US Treasury confirmed just that when it published the long awaited report on "Foreign Exchange Policies of Major Trading Partners of the United States" which while keeping the same six countries - China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Germany, and Switzerland - on its manipulation monitoring watch list, it said no major trading partner met the criteria

For 2016, international merchandise trade statistics point out China has net imported roughly 1,300 tonnes of gold, down 17 % from 2015. The importance of measuring gold imports into the Chinese domestic gold market - which are prohibited from being exported – is to come to the best understanding on the division of above ground reserves in and outside the Chinese domestic market. 

In a setback for government efforts to abolish low tax rates for thousands of multinational firms while encouraging them to stay, the Swiss voted overwhelmingly against an overhaul the country's corporate tax system. Swiss broadcaster SRF said voters rejected the tax plans by about 60% to 40%. As Reuters notes, Switzerland has been in the European Union's firing line for years because Swiss cantons have a special tax status for foreign companies that means some pay virtually no tax other than an effective federal tax of 7.8%, an incentive to incorporate and stay on Swiss soil.