A major part of Liechtenstein s industrial enterprises are family companies with their
head offices in the country. This, for example, applies to Liechtenstein's largest
company which alone has more than 1,000 employees. One of the strong points of
the industry is that its foreign branches have twice as many employees as its offices
in Liechtenstein. This is, in part, due to marketing, but mainly due to the difficulty of
finding labour in Liechtenstein.
Now anal importance is: attached. t0. the. service. sector va
Here again there is a broad range of public, commercial, technical and cultural
services. The tourist industry and catering trade are not as important as they are
believed to be. This branch of industry only accounts for 4 % of the country's total
jobs. Tourist statistics indicate the relatively low figures of 60,000 visitors and
120 000 overnight stays.
The banking sector is, however, more important, accounting for about 7 % of total
employment. Just as much jobs can be found in the wholesale and retail trade. And
the largest branch of industry in the service sector, with regard to employment, are
legal and economic consulting services with 8 % of total jobs in Liechtenstein.
This branch of the financial sector administers the 70,000 registered domiciliary and
holding companies. More than half of the government's receipts come from this
branch if we take into account the taxes on income, wage tax and other taxes in
addition to company taxes. The legal and economic consulting services are naturally
closely connected to the banking sector.
As you may know, besides two branches of foreign banks, there are only five
Liechtenstein banks there, but their balance sheets total 27 billion francs and together
they have almost double that sum of client assets under administration.
[n keeping with global developments, the banking sector has undergone profound
development since the eighties. The balance sheet total has, for example, almost
tripled in the last ten years.
6/12
3Er. ZWGI
nr
