Four per cent of Switzerland's Gross Domestic Product comes from the shipping and logistics sector. It employs some 130,000 people in Switzerland alone.

The International Federation of Freight Forwarders Associations is based in Zurich.

Shipping

Surprising as it may seem for a landlocked country, Switzerland has a merchant navy, with around 30 ships transporting goods of all kinds apart from arms, operating under contract anywhere in the world. Their port of registration is Basel.

The fleet - the most modern in the world - accounts for about 0.1% of world tonnage.

Five companies sail ships under the Swiss flag. However, although there were once hundreds of Swiss working on these ships, nowadays very few of the sailors are Swiss nationals.

Logistics

With increasing globalisation efficient transport is becoming more and more important.  Switzerland is home of two of the world's major logistics companies, Panalpina and Kühne and Nagel as well as numerous small firms. Basel is the centre of the sector.

Their task is to ensure that their customers' goods and production elements are delivered to the right place at the right time, as modern manufacturers sub-contract work abroad. These manufacturers strive to cut costs as far as possible, and therefore need items delivered just when they are needed, according to the so-called "just in time" principle. Items delivered too soon incur warehousing costs; delivered too late leads to a break in production. 

Switzerland is one of the few countries in the world which trains professionals for the logistics industry, rather than expecting them to learn on the job.