Seco sticks to forecast of slow upswing

The State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (Seco) has kept to its prognosis of a slowly advancing recovery of the Swiss economy.

In its Summer 2010 forecast, Seco’s group of experts said that growth for 2010 was slightly better than anticipated, but that it saw increased risks for 2011.

“While the growth prospects for 2010 are even slightly better than anticipated until now (1.8 per cent instead of 1.4 per cent), the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) forecast for 2011 in light of increased external trade risks in connection with the euro crisis will be lowered slightly (1.6 per cent instead of 2.0 per cent),” Seco said in a statement on Tuesday.

It said that the outlook for the job market had brightened even though the decrease in unemployment was likely to continue slowly.

Seco also released unemployment figures for May, showing a 0.2 per cent fall on April to 3.8 per cent.

swissinfo.ch and agencies