Britain and Switzerland will on Wednesday ink an agreement to recognise each other's professional qualifications in services sectors like architecture and auditing.
The deal follows talks last month between the two countries on a new post-Brexit free trade agreement, aimed at boosting financial and professional services exports.
Wednesday’s agreement will introduce a system for recognising qualified professionals from the start of 2025, and will also set out a bespoke route for recognition of some legal professionals.
“This agreement will hopefully ensure UK companies compete for more contracts in Switzerland in the future, boosting UK services exports, and encouraging new Swiss investment into the UK,” British trade secretary Kemi Badenoch said in a statementExternal link.
The deal on recognising professional qualifications will replace an interim UK-Swiss agreement which replicated the arrangements Britain had when it was a member of the European Union for a time-limited period.
The professional qualifications deal comes amid a series of cooperation agreements signed between Britain and Switzerland in recent months. Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis and former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson inked an accord in April 2022 to strengthen mutual cooperation in trade, finance, research and immigration.
Britain is one of Switzerland’s top ten trade partners, with nearly CHF44 billion of trade in goods and services flowing between the two countries, according to Swiss figures.
From the British side, Switzerland is its tenth most important trading venue with a combined trade volume (imports and exports) it says is worth £53 billion.
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