In an in-depth interview with Swissinfo, Jeff Rowe, the CEO of the Syngenta Group, headquartered in Switzerland, explains why being Chinese-owned is good for the company. In 2017, the Swiss agricultural technology company Syngenta was acquired by the Chinese state-owned group ChemChina for $43 billion (CHF33.3 billion). The record-breaking deal raised multiple concerns in Switzerland and led to the establishment of the so-called “Lex Syngenta”, a set of rules and parliamentary decisions designed to address concerns about foreign state-owned acquisitions of strategically important Swiss companies. The Syngenta Group, which specialises in crop protection and seeds, is now fully owned by Sinochem Holdings, a Chinese state-owned group created from the combination of Sinochem Group and ChemChina. The Syngenta Group achieved sales of $28.8 billion in 2024 and employs 56,000 people across over 90 countries. Those figures are higher compared to sales of $12.65 billion in 2017 (before the ...
