Bern - Switzerland sent a letter of complaint to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, posted on a government Website Wednesday, saying the think-tank did not receive its permission to publish a grey list of so called tax havens.

The OECD, which is supported a group of developed economies of which the Alpine nation is a member, placed Switzerland and several other countries on a grey list around the G20 meeting held in London at the beginning of this month.

Bern - Swiss and US tax authorities began negotiations on Tuesday on opening and re-drawing the double taxation agreements, an official confirmed. The negotiations followed Switzerland's announcement last month, along with other countries with banking secrecy laws, that it would relax the strict rules and help fight tax fraud in line with the standards of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

That OECD has placed Switzerland on a so-called grey list until it implements its pledges.

Bern - Philipp Hildebrand will replace Jean-Pierre Roth at the helm of the Swiss National Bank starting at the beginning of next year, the Federal Council announced Wednesday.

Roth announced in January his plans to retire as chairman of the governing board of the SNB, a post he has held since 2001.

The council, the executive branch of government, also promoted Thomas Jordan from being a member of the board to replacing Hildebrand as vice chairman responsible for financial systems.

Bern, Switzerland  - E-mail, internet bill paying and other electric substitutes had already been hitting the world's postal services hard when the global economic crisis struck, leading individuals and companies to cut back anywhere they could including in the mail.

"Some of our largest mailers are in financial services, catalogue sales, manufacturers," said Lea Emerson, the head of the international division at the United States Postal Service (USPS). "Those are some of the ones hardest hit by crisis, and they are mailing much less."

Bern, Switzerland - The global postal sector has been hit by the economic crisis but the downturn also has financial benefits, the Universal Postal Union said Thursday.

The crisis was most advantageous for post offices that were able to offer financial services.

"Some European operators, such as Swiss Post and Deutsche Post, are experiencing annual growth rates above 50 per cent in the number of postal deposits and savings accounts opened in 2008," the UPU said, noting that a similar phenomenon occurred during the Great Depression.

Bern  - Revised government figures for 2009 released Tuesday showed that Switzerland's economy would shrink by 2.2 per cent and the recession would be significantly worse than had been envisaged.

Previous statistics by the Swiss Economic Ministry had predicted a contraction of 0.8 per cent.

The latest forecast said that if there was an easing of the global financial crisis, Switzerland could see slightly positive growth of 0.1 per cent in 2010, even as the labour market would continue to deteriorate.