DOMESTIC PRODUCTION



A recent report by Alessandra Colecchia of the OECD compared the ICT production sectors across OECD countries. The report focuses on four main points in its comparison.1 Switzerland has very little domestic production of hardware and software. This is supported by the OECD’s findings. Among those countries that specialize in ICT manufacturing exports, Switzerland is near the bottom of the list. The ICT contribution to economic activity is also low in comparison with other countries. In 2000, this sector contributed about 8% in value to the overall economic activity.  This is considerably lower than other European countries. During that same year Ireland ICT sector was responsible for more than a 16% contribution to economic activity.

Switzerland’s labor productivity growth as a result of ICT manufacturing and services industries is small as well. During the five-year period, 1996-2000 Switzerland’s ICT manufacturing industries contributed .1% to growth in productivity. The service industry was responsible for .001% of productivity growth during the same five-year period.2

ICT accounted for 8% of Switzerland's 2000 GDP. This number is low when compared to industry contributions to the 2001 GDP. For example, agriculture accounted for 2% of the GDP and services accounted for 69.3% The large percentage that services represents the high presence of financial services companies in Switzerland. Most of the market volume in ICT in Switzerland would come from the services sector. Production of hardware and software makes a very small contribution to the overall GDP. From the marketing and promotion of Switzerland as an ICT destination, one can see that the country desire a stronger ICT presence is not borne out of an economic need, but a need to be technologically current. On the whole, as the table below shows, there are countries whose ICT market volume is less than Switzerland, but this can be misleading. The size of each nation's economies must be factored into the equation. However, it is clear that Switzerland is not trying to power its economy on ICT, but realizes the economic and technological benefits of  development in this area.

ICT Market Volume as % of 2000 GDP
Sweden       
               8.6
Switzerland
  8.0
UK
  7.7
Netherlands
 7.4
Portugal
 7.3
Greece
  6.4
Ireland
 6.1
Austria
  6.0
Germany
 5.8
Italy
  5.7
                                                          Source: Information Communication Technology in Switzerland


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