Even experts didn’t expect it
KOF economic barometer rose significantly in January
The prospects for the Swiss economy are brightening significantly. The KOF economic barometer rose clearly in January.
Published: 12 minutes ago
According to the economic research center KOF, the economic prospects have recently brightened significantly. There are also positive signals from the catering trade. (Iconic image)
The economic barometer climbed to 97.2 points and is thus 5.7 points higher than in December (revised to 91.5 from 92.2 points), as the ETH economic research institute KOF announced on Monday. There had already been an increase in December. Before that, the indicator had receded slightly almost every month for the past year. Despite the current increase, it is still below the long-term average of 100 points.
Economists had expected an increase in advance, but not to this extent. Experts interviewed by the news agency AWP had only forecast values between 92.8 and 94.0 points.
The prospects for the Swiss economy at the beginning of the year were significantly less gloomy than they were in the autumn of last year, according to the KOF statement. All sets of indicators would contribute to the improvement. They would have developed particularly favorably for the manufacturing industry, the hospitality industry and services.
Nevertheless, according to the communiqué, the bundles for manufacturing and services are still missing their medium-term average value. On the other hand, the indicators of the hospitality industry have managed to jump above the average value, so the prospects here are now above average.
The KOF economic barometer is a leading indicator for the development of the Swiss economy, which is made up of a large number of individual indicators. Since the most recent revision, there are 608 of them. These are combined into an overall indicator using statistically determined weights.
With the Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), another important leading economic indicator will be published on Wednesday.
(SDA)