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History of economic relations

Trade relations between the two countries were not only favored by geographical proximity but also by their membership in the Latin Monetary Union, to which is added the opening of the Gotthard tunnel and the port of Geneva. A partial slowdown in the development of trade relations took place with the Italian protectionist turn in the 70s of the nineteenth century, that led to a revision of the trade treaties. Although the revision took place, trade balance remained clearly in favor of Italy. Until 1970 the Swiss market stood out for being the only one with which it benefited from a constant trade surplus, already at the beginning of the 20th century Swiss investors and companies gave important impulses to the peninsula. Among the main FDI are included about 60 cotton mills controlled by Swiss investors and conspicuous holdings, until the birth of ENEL, of shares in the electricity industry. Bilateral trade was not visibly affected by Italy's participation in war, a clear sign was the opening of Swiss Chamber of Commerce in Italy in 1919. This period is also characterized by a relative decrease in Swiss imports from Italy although exports remained constant, this turned out on the reduction of trade balance favorable to Italy. After the war in Ethiopia, the Swiss financial center and in particular the credit institutions, played a central role in the transfer of credit to Italy. The end of the Second World War gave a new start to bilateral trade, which remained on private trade level. After 1950 both countries joins to the European Payments Union and creation of new trade agreements and new payment methods, brought to a new period of liberalization of bilateral trade and stability in terms of trade volume. That remained more or less unchanged until the 80s and the trade balance is still in favor of Italy. This period is featured by a large amount of investment from the Confederation to the peninsula: The Swiss financial center stood out for its fundamental role in assignment of receivables to Italian companies and institutions. One of the company that received a loan from Swiss financial center is state railways, which used it to strengthening and electrifying the railway lines that connected northern Italy to Switzerland. Financing that was also favored by the fact that about 50% of the Swiss FDI in Italy was concentrated in that geographical region. The importance of Swiss direct investment in Italy was placed first in some statistics, but this figure was often explained by the influx of Italian capital illegally exported to the confederation and which made Lugano the third financial center of the country.

Infrastructure

The most important infrastructural works carried out thanks to the close economic and financial relations of the two countries are certainly: the Gran San Bernardo tunnel and the construction of the pipeline that connects Genoa to Collombey. Both works are joint initiatives, financed in the first case in particular by Fiat and in the second proposal by ENI crucial not so much for the economic scope of the project but for the key role that Italy has played in the supply of crude oil to Switzerland. Finally, we can count the construction of the new Gotthard line in 2016 that allows to speed up transport between Italy and the highland regions.

Contemporary economic relations

Nowadays Switzerland is one of the most important trading partner of Italy. In 2021, Switzerland exported goods worth US$ 13.2 billion to Italy and imported goods worth US$ 32.2 billion, resulting in a total trade volume of US$ 45.4 billion. Investment flows in both directions are of major economic significance for both countries. The net value of Italy-Switzerland FDI in 2020 are: - Swiss direct investments in Italy amounted to EUR 28.9 billion - Italian direct investments in Switzerland totaled EUR 18.4 billion. Another important aspect are the fact that exchanges becomes really close in border regions where over 70000 Italians cross the border to work in Switzerland. On the other hand the presence of Italian companies in the Swiss territory, can count at the end of 2017 about a thousand, which hire 21 thousand employees, mainly in the following sectors: clothing, finance, food and construction. Specifically for the construction sector, the Italian Chamber of Commerce for Switzerland, has launched an initiative called Investment4Business, which facilitates and promotes investments in real estate business between the two countries.