Every spring in Switzerland, BaselWorld: the World Watch, Clock and Jewellery Show, is held in the historic city of Basel, which straddles the Rhine. This year the river was high, matching the expectations of the buyers and sellers who made it a record year for the show.
This is the most important watch and jewellery exhibition anywhere in the world and for this reason, most watch manufacturers launch their important new products during the eight days of the show.
Its importance can be gauged by its size: this year it attracted 2,127 exhibiting companies, covered a gross surface area of 160,000 sq m and attracted 94,200 visitors from more than 100 countries, a new record for the exhibition and an increase of 5 per cent over the previous year.
The show is important not only to buyers, sellers and collectors, but also to the media.
This year 2,529 journalists from more than 70 countries were present to keep abreast of the latest developments and to disseminate news about the latest watches around the globe. The exhibition is also open to the public, although a one-day ticket costs 45 Swiss francs ($275).
In the watch halls this year there was an unusually confident mood. The value of worldwide exports of Swiss watches last year was an all-time record at 12.3 billion Swiss francs, an increase of 10.4 per cent over the previous year.
This year got off to a good start and the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry predicts a further increase of 5 per cent or 6 per cent over last year's record figure.