The CCISP – An outstanding example of a modern and relevant chamber of commerce

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Swiss-Portugal Chamber of Commerce & Industry (CCISP) began to modernise and reorganise its internal structures. Essential Business talks to CCISP General Secretary Dr. Gregor Zemp about adopting a fully flexible model better able to adapt to and meet fresh challenges and opportunities.

Text and photos: Chris Graeme

Since taking the helm at the Swiss-Portugal Chamber of Commerce & Industry (CCISP) in 2010, General Secretary Gregor Zemp has seen a lot of changes.

For a start, there has been a considerable uptick in the number of Swiss companies operating in Portugal – an estimated 150 – and even more business professionals, particularly in the technology and services areas.

A growing Swiss tech and services startup community

“Services have been growing with the boom in the IT sector and the investment in service centres in Portugal. Many Swiss companies are coming here and opening IT branch offices, and this has been growing, with a lot of requests for advice and assistance at the chamber,” says Gregor, who has been with the chamber for 14 years.

The growing IT startup community in Portugal includes a number of startups with Swiss DNA, such as Sherpany (software), Nezasa (a Business travel platform) and Leonteq (a securities fintech).

And, naturally, the CCISP counts a number of large Swiss and other big-name European companies operating in Portugal among its members, including multi-national names like Zurich (insurance), Novartis (pharmaceuticals), Roche (pharmaceuticals), Nestlé (foodstuffs), SGS (inspection and certification), ABB (automation and electrification tech), Hilti (construction industry tools and software), Adecco (human resources recruitment and training), SIKA (construction and auto industry chemicals), Schindler (elevators and escalators), MSC (a cruise line), and several companies from the watch industry.

In 2017, to facilitate contacts and networking and to attract Swiss tech companies to Portugal, the CCISP organised one of its biggest and most ambitious events ever – #Swisstech Night – during the first Web Summit held in Lisbon, and the event is now a regular annual fixture with the number of companies and professionals attending growing ever since.

“For this event, we invite the Swiss business community and startups. At the first event, which we organised spontaneously in just two weeks, we had 150 people at the Swiss Club in Lisbon. Over time, we have adapted and improved the event format. Last year, we had around 40 startups and their representatives, totalling 300 people,” says Greg.

Modernising the CCISP

After the COVID-19 pandemic, the CCISP reset its strategy to improve and update services offered to the Swiss business community in Portugal, making it more relevant to the expectation and needs of modern companies.

“We started off by asking a very fundamental question: Why does a chamber of commerce exist? It was an important question to ask in order to ascertain if we were still relevant or if we had become obsolete over time,” explains Gregor Zemp.

“Nowadays, companies can find all the information they need on the internet. Therefore, there is no point in our Chamber being a pure information supplier as we were 30 years ago. Now, tools like ChatGPT can explain the steps for starting a company in Portugal, whereas years ago, the chamber would have provided that information,” explains the CCISP General Secretary.

Nevertheless, as Gregor Zemp points out, the high number of requests they receive shows that they are still relevant.

“This is because we have a large personal contact network and know who the reliable partners are. We help by providing personalised quality information.”

The CCISP is modernising through further digitalisation, a new website with integrated AI features (e.g., avatars describing how to do things rather than chamber staff spending hours on the phone and writing emails answering such questions), and by using more AI tools for marketing and communication. These activities have become cheaper as the CCISP now generates more content itself with such tools.

“When it comes to setting up a business, we know the contacts and the reliable partners on the ground. That is where the chamber can be crucial and make a difference.”

Nearshoring opportunities for Swiss companies in Portugal

Gregor Zemp says that Swiss companies that were more quality-orientated resisted the trend to offshore all or part of their production to South-East Asia and the Far East in the 1990s and first decade of the 21st century. However, with increasing logistics and supply costs and ongoing geopolitical tensions, some companies that did are now nearshoring back to Europe.

“When I started at the CCISP, Portugal was just not on the radar for Swiss people, and even less so for Swiss companies, but now it is. Swiss companies have problems with keeping costs down; they need alternatives, and many of them don’t want to be in Asia anymore. Portugal is an excellent alternative,” he explains.

At the same time Switzerland is exporting more pharmaceuticals (+50%), chemicals, machinery, and watches.

Concentrating on niche products, he says, has always been a successful strategy for Swiss companies. “This is a strategy that Portugal, also a small market, is increasingly opting for. “The cheap textile manufacturers in the 1990s in Portugal did not survive unless they aimed for niche and quality products. Portugal is increasingly adopting the Swiss way, too.”

Gregor Zemp says that now is the time for Portugal and Portuguese companies to promote themselves in Switzerland, and that Portuguese overseas trade and investment entities and business associations should analyse which are the “right channels to position Portuguese companies and products in the Swiss market”.

Fact-finding trips

Inversely, when a Swiss company is thinking of setting up in Portugal, it mandates the CCISP for a fact-finding trip (FFT).

“Many of these companies knew nothing about Portugal and now have a setup with over 200 employees already. This is something that I find very satisfying.”

Setting up a Swiss business in Portugal, Greg says, has become easier, but it depends on where in the country, because a large portion of the success of such a project depends on individual municipalities.

“Some are ‘top’ and some are ‘flop’. Regardless of whether it’s run by a left, centre or right political party, it really depends on the mayor and his team. This is one of the key factors when doing company setup projects—how cooperative, efficient and fast are the local municipalities?”

“We had a situation where a watch company needed to produce watch straps and needed premises that were partly office and partly workshop with a lot of natural light and a high ceiling, but not quite a factory. We couldn’t find something for them, so they built it in a greenfield operation,” the CCISP General Secretary explains, adding that most Swiss industrial companies are in the centre and the north of Portugal, with agriculture and tourism companies more in the south.

“Although we get some financial support from the Swiss government, we generate the most important parts of our funding through the services we provide and invoice to companies, as well as from our membership fees.”

As for the services, “we operate like a consultancy, and regarding the membership fees, we have different membership plans that you can find on our website, www.swiss-chamber.pt”, concludes Gregor Zemp, General Secretary of the Swiss-Portugal Chamber of Commerce & Industry (CCISP).

Switzerland and Portugal – long-established ties

The Swiss Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Portugal (Câmara de Comércio e Indústria Suíça em Portugal, CCISP) was founded in 1987 in the presence of Mário Soares, who was the President of Portugal at the time, and a Swiss Federal Councillor.

Mário Soares had a special relationship with Switzerland. Before he founded the Portuguese Socialist Party (Partido Socialista) in exile in Germany, he had been one of the founding members of the forerunner of the PS party, the Portuguese Socialist Action (Acção Socialista Portuguesa – ASP), which had been formed in 1964 in Geneva.

After the Carnation Revolution, leading Swiss companies in Portugal sought a common business platform to enhance their networking and exchange experiences.

The links between the two countries, however, date back much further. There are some references, albeit unclear, of Swiss mercenaries fighting alongside the Portuguese at the Battle of Alcácer Quibir (also known as the “Battle of Three Kings”) in Morocco. This battle has been described as “the greatest military disaster the Portuguese ever suffered in the course of their overseas expansion”.

In later centuries, Portugal recognised Swiss neutrality in 1815 at the Congress of Vienna at the end of the Napoleonic Wars.

At this time, consular relations were established between the two countries. Switzerland opened a consulate in Lisbon in 1817, which was upgraded to a consulate general in 1874, following the negotiation of the first commercial treaty in 1873. In turn, Portugal established its own consulate in Switzerland in 1855 in Geneva.

The treaty was cemented when the Portuguese King Dom Luís authorised the dispatch of the first ambassador to Switzerland (Special Envoy Plenipotentiary, Júlio Augusto Ferreira, Viscount of Santa Isabel) on December 6, 1873. The rest, as they say, is history.

However, this first formal agreement was not signed until 10 years later, in 1873. Last year, the two countries celebrated the 150th anniversary of that agreement.

A Portuguese legation was established in Bern in 1892 and was later upgraded to an embassy in 1959.

Initially, the focus was primarily on trade and business, but a consular convention, which included the extradition of criminals, was signed in 1883.

Later, at the request of Portugal, Switzerland was asked to help settle a dispute between Portugal and Great Britain through arbitration at a court in Bern over the Lourenço Marques railroad affair (also known as The Delagoa Affair or the British Ultimatum), which took place between 1891 and 1900.

Switzerland was also one of the first countries to officially recognise the First Portuguese Republic in 1910, even before France.

In the 20th century, a Swiss diplomatic chancery was established in the Portuguese capital in 1936 and was upgraded to a legation in 1945 and then to an embassy in 1959. Portugal first established a consulate in Switzerland in 1855 in Geneva. A Portuguese legation was set up in Bern in 1892 and was replaced by an embassy in 1959.

Photo: Gregor Zemp Left), General Secretary at the Swiss-Portuguese Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCISP), Swiss ambassador to Portugal, Denis Knobel (Centre), and António Alberto Martins Bico, President, CCISP. (Right)