The president of the Swiss-Chinese Chamber of Commerce (SCCC) said that Swiss companies would stand to benefit from China becoming the European Union’s (EU) top trading partner. “With 2021 being the year of the coronavirus pandemic recovery, I expect some statistics to change again,” Felix Sutter, who has been the chamber’s president since 2015, told Xinhua. “In 2020 the personal protective equipment (PPE) industry had an impact on statistics. In 2021 the pharmaceutical industries will have an oversized impact as well,” Sutter said, “Furthermore, many affected SME’s (small and medium-sized enterprises) and MNC’s (multinational companies) began to address supply chain challenges and may start to source regionally rather than from far away places.” China overtook the United States to become the EU’s top trading partner for the first time last year, the EU’s statistical office Eurostat said. Sutter said that Switzerland would be ideally positioned economically and geographically as “a landing place for Chinese organizations.” Since 2010, China has been Switzerland’s biggest trading partner in Asia and its third largest globally after the EU and the U.S. The two countries signed a free trade agreement (FTA) that entered into force on July 1, 2014.