Booming bassin: a beautiful location, Francophone workers and attractive tax rates are luring more and more foreign companies to the Lake Geneva region. Stretching from Geneva to Lausanne on the northern bank of the lake and around to the tourist town of Montreux, a new agglomeration is developing. But can it rival Zurich and Basel for the title of Switzerland's most dynamic economic region?

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BUSINESS

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Booming bassin: a beautiful location, Francophone workers and attractive tax rates are luring more and more foreign companies to the Lake Geneva region. Stretching from Geneva to Lausanne on the northern bank of the lake and around to the tourist town of Montreux, a new agglomeration is developing. But can it rival Zurich and Basel for the title of Switzerland's most dynamic economic region?

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For years, the Suisse Romande has lagged behind its Swiss-German rivals as a location for commerce: while Basel's pharmaceutical, chemical and biotech industries flourished and Zurich's financial services sector grew rapidly, French-speaking parts of the country drew up the rear, saddled with relatively high unemployment and a lack of dynamic businesses. Now the situation has changed.

Like a sleeping giant, the so-called bassin lemanique appears to have woken up, aided by a boom in...

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