Gehrig upbeat about economy but warns against complacency

Bruno Gehrig has warned that efforts must be maintained to keep the Swiss economy in good shape swissinfo.ch

The vice president of the Swiss National Bank, Bruno Gehrig, has said the Swiss economy is well prepared to face the many challenges of the future. However, he warned against complacency in the face of ever-tougher competition from abroad.

Speaking at the 200th jubilee of the Winterthur Chamber of Commerce and Employers’ Association, Gehrig said that much had been achieved since the 1990s when the average annual growth of the economy was no more than 0.75 per cent.

He said this was way below the average growth rate of two per cent, which was achieved in the preceding two decades, and that, throughout the 1990s, Switzerland had languished at the bottom of the list of industrialised countries in terms of growth.

Gehrig said that under the pressure of stagnation, painful reforms had taken place not only in many enterprises, but also at the political level.

“We have learned how to grow again. It was a good two per cent on average over the past three years…and encouragingly, we have full employment once again,” he said.

“To what extent we can attribute this progress to the cyclical upswing of the economy or to the structural efforts made is difficult to say. But…there is a lot that speaks for the assumption that structural improvements played a major role,” he added.

Gehrig said that two entrepreneurial qualities would be put to the test in the future – a controlled approach to risks and the ability to act and react quickly at a time of accelerating change.

He said persistent, creative and constructive efforts were needed from employers, workers and the authorities to maintain and improve Switzerland’s position.

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