SECO Upgrades Swiss GDP Outlook; Sees Sluggish Recovery

Tuesday, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs raised Switzerland’s economic outlook, while forecasting the recovery to remain sluggish next year.

The expert group of the Federal Government expects the economy to shrink 1.7% during 2009, better than the 2.7% decline estimated in June, the agency said. With the global economy running out of steam again in the course of 2010, the government expects the economy to post a moderate growth of 0.4% next year compared to the previous forecast for a 0.4% fall.

While making the assessment, the expert group assumed that the current strong global economic upswing dynamics will loose a great deal of its momentum in 2010 with fiscal impulses fading out. But, cyclical upswing dynamics would continue for a longer period following the previous sharp drop in demand.

Recession in Switzerland was relatively mild compared to international scale due to a stable domestic demand which partly offset losses in the export industry and the finance sector. Strongest negative impulses on GDP came from a sharp decline in the value added in the financial sector.

With momentum picking up slowly, the prospects for the labor market remain bleak. Employment is likely to fall in the coming quarters and would not start to increase before late 2010. The jobless rate is set to rise to an annual average of 5.2% next year from this year’s 3.8%.

Regarding consumer prices, SECO expects the phase of negative consumer price development to halt within the coming few months as the price decreasing effects resulting from crude oil prices will disappear in the coming months. Consumer prices are expected to rise 0.9% in 2010.

On September 17, the Swiss National Bank kept its key interest rate unchanged at 0.25% for the second rate-setting session in a row. Also, the bank revised its economic outlook for 2009 citing improvements in the global economy and at home. It now expects the economy to shrink between 1.5% and 2% this year.

The revisions of SECO and the central bank were in contrast to the assessment of the Zurich-based KOF. The think-tank sees a contraction of 3.3% in 2009, worse than its March’s forecast of a 2.4% shrinkage. For 2010, the research institute expects a GDP decline of 0.6%, while it had predicted a 0.3% contraction in March.

Elsewhere, the Federal Customs Administration reported a decline in the Switzerland’s trade surplus for August. The surplus stood at CHF 1.79 billion, down from CHF 2.21 billion in July.