Global Industry Competitiveness Index 2021

Switzerland's chemical and pharmaceutical industry is of great importance for the country's growth and prosperity. Due to its very high international competitiveness, it has been able to benefit strongly from advantageous global demand trends over the past ten years and has thus been the central growth driver of the Swiss economy. The high level of competitiveness is also evidenced by the Global Industry Competitiveness Index (GICI) published for the second time by BAK Economics. The GICI is a global comparison of locations for the chemical and pharmaceutical industry. As in 2020, Switzerland ranks second - together with the USA. With a slight lead, Ireland is currently the most competitive location according to the GICI. The high competitiveness of the Swiss chemical and pharmaceutical industry is broadly based. Switzerland is among the top 3 in all fields of analysis, something no other country can match. It is characterized by exceptionally high growth and above-average productivity. Local companies invest successfully in research and development of new products. In doing so, they are laying the foundation for continuing to compete successfully on a global scale in the future. This is also necessary, because competition in the area of innovation is increasing strongly. An important success factor for the future research center is digital transformation. Digitalization holds many opportunities, both in healthcare and in pharmaceutical research. Our analysis indicates that Switzerland currently still has potential for improvement in this area. In various countries, there is a central data infrastructure that is much more tailored to the needs of research. Accordingly, digital penetration of research and the dynamics of research with digital technologies are significantly less pronounced than in the US and Asian locations, which are leaders in this area.