Geneva's efforts to ensure that business, finance and industry can rely on trained, multilingual men and women have been long established. Top skills and qualifications come at relatively high salaries. But every international group in Geneva agrees that the quality of work, the sense of responsibility, low absenteeism, no strikes and high productivity constitute a high return on the investment. The Swiss are known for working hard. They put in 1921 hours a year as against 1322 hours for the average German.
Geneva is the capital of one of the world's oldest technologies - watchmaking.
Few products have been developed in the same place for as long. Mechanical engineering and micro-electronics are thus the natural fields for the city's industrial sector. Virtually the entire production is exported. Telecommunications, information technology and artificial intelligence have found fertile ground here. Telecom, the world's biggest trade show for future technologies, stakes its future on Geneva.