Economic Sentiment for Switzerland Slightly Recovers

In September 2016, the ZEW-CS Indicator for the economic sentiment in
Switzerland rose by 5.5 points to a reading of 2.7 points. This is the
first increase of the ZEW-CS Indicator after it had been falling for the
last two months. As in the previous month, optimists and pessimists hold
almost equal shares among the experts. When it comes to the current
economic situation in Switzerland, however, experts are less positive in
their evaluation than in the previous month: The corresponding indicator
declined by 3.3 points to a level of 8.0 points.

The ZEW-CS Indicator reflects the expectations of the surveyed financial
market experts regarding the economic development in Switzerland on a six-
month time horizon. It is calculated monthly by ZEW, Mannheim, in
cooperation with CS, Zurich.

Despite its slight increase, the ZEW-CS Indicator remains close to zero.
The share of respondents forecasting a positive economic development for
the coming six months is only slightly higher than the share of experts
expecting a negative development. 60 per cent of the experts expect the
Swiss economy to remain unchanged in the coming six months. Given the
latest figures on economic growth, this is rather surprising. In the second
quarter of 2016, the real Swiss GDP rose by 0.6 per cent compared to the
previous quarter, and by 2.0 per cent compared to the second quarter of
2015.

The expectations regarding the long-term interest rates in Switzerland have
risen considerably in the current survey. The corresponding indicator
climbed by 18.6 points to a level of 50.1 points. A majority of almost 53
per cent expect the long-term interest rates to rise. Against this
backdrop, the expectations for the inflation rate have also seen an
increase, with the respective indicator climbing by 16.6 points to a
reading of 42.2 points. This means that the share of experts predicting a
rising inflation rate greatly outweighs the share of respondents expecting
the inflation rate to decrease.

More detailed results – including survey participants' assessment of
developments in other countries – can be found in this month's edition of
the "Switzerland Financial market report" (please note that the URL is case
sensitive): http://www.zew.de/zew-cs-financialmarketreport

You can find a data sheet with the complete results of the survey in the
attached PDF-file.

For further information please contact:

Markus Teske (ZEW), Phone +49 (0)621 1235-372,
E-mail teske@zew.de

Lukas Gehrig (Credit Suisse), Phone +41 44 333 52 07,
E-mail lukas.gehrig@credit-suisse.com