Swiss foreign trade booms in the first quarter
Select your language
Generated with artificial intelligence.
Listening:
Swiss foreign trade booms in the first quarter
Swiss imports and exports reached new heights in the first quarter, driven by the chemicals and pharmaceuticals sectors. Shipments to the United States rose sharply.
Between January and the end of March, seasonally adjusted exports rose by 3.6% in nominal terms (not adjusted for inflation) over a quarter, passing the CHF74 billion mark for the first time, the Federal Office for Customs and Border Security (FOCBS) said in a press release on Thursday.
+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox
“The upward trend that began in the second quarter of 2024 has thus been confirmed, leading to a new all-time peak in outflows”, the FOCBS noted.
Over the same period, imports rose by 5.9% to a record 60.5 billion. On the input side, too, the positive trend observed since the second quarter of 2024 continued, “albeit at a slower pace”. The trade surplus stood at CHF13.6 billion.
With the exception of vehicles, all the groups of goods exported recorded an increase in the first quarter, albeit at different rates. With a rise of CHF2.3 billion, chemical and pharmaceutical products made the biggest contribution – based solely on the price effect – to export growth.
Exports to North America saw the strongest growth, up 16.6%, and 17.4% to the United States. In terms of imports, all twelve commodity groups were up on the previous quarter, contributing to a record result of CHF2.5 billion (+12.6%). Imports of chemical and pharmaceutical products were also “by far the most dynamic”.
Adapted from French by DeepL/ac
How we work
We select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate them into English. An editor then briefly reviews the translation for clarity and accuracy before publication. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. The news stories we select have been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team from news agencies such as Bloomberg or Keystone.
Did you find this explanation helpful? Please fill out this short survey to help us understand your needs: https://survey.survicate.com/d0df481d0b13412d/?p=anonymousExternal linkExternal linkExternal link
More
Why Switzerland is among the ten fastest-warming countries in the world
More
In Switzerland four out of ten people have a migrant background – who are they?
More
Suicides in Switzerland quadruple among older people
More
French gangs target luxury cars in Switzerland
More
Renewed controversy in Switzerland over US fighter jets – explained
In compliance with the JTI standards
More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.