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Growth forecasts for Switzerland lowered further

Destroyed Ukrainian building
Buildings near Kyiv destroyed by a Russian airstrike on December 14. The war in Ukraine is one factor weighing down the Swiss economy. Keystone / Oleg Petrasyuk

Growth forecasts for Switzerland have been revised downwards for the current year and 2023 by the KOF Swiss Economic Institute, amid fears of a global recession and the war in Ukraine. The economists also changed their predictions for inflation.

The KOF Consensus Forecast expects gross domestic product (GDP) to grow by 1.9% this year, compared with the figure of 2.2% it gave in October. For 2023, GDP should grow by 0.7%, down from the previous prediction of 1%, the research centre of the federal technology institute ETH Zurich said in a statementExternal link on Monday.

Inflation is expected to be 2.9% in 2022 and 2.3% in 2023. Three months ago the experts who took part in the survey expected inflation to be 3% and 2.4% respectively.

The slowdown in the global economy is also expected to weigh on the labour market. The unemployment rate is expected to rise from 2.2% to 2.3% in 2022 and to 2.4% next year.

Last week the Swiss National Bank (SNB) said it expected GDP to improve by around 2% this year and 0.5% next year. The State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) predicts 2.1% and 0.7% for 2022 and 2023.

Some 20 economists took part in the KOF study, which was conducted between November 29 and December 14.

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