Last year's rise in inflation can be explained by higher electricity and gas prices, as well as higher rents, Switzerland's Federal Statistical Office said on Monday.
Keystone/gaetan Bally
The annual inflation rate in Switzerland averaged 2.1% last year, according to the Federal Statistical Office (FSO).
This compared to 2.8% in 2022 and 0.6% in 2021. The rise last year can be explained by higher electricity and gas prices, as well as higher rents, FSO said. By contrast, prices fell for petroleum products, telecommunications and medicines.
The consumer price index (CPI) in Switzerland remained stable in December compared with the previous month. Compared with December 2022, the index rose by 1.7%. The latest figures published on Monday are slightly higher than forecasts of the financial sector, which was a rise of between 1.4% and 1.6%.
The stability of last month’s CPI on an annualised basis “is the result of opposing trends which, on the whole, offset each other”, says FSO, citing the rise in prices in the hotel industry and for public air transport, while those for fuel and heating oil fell, as did those for medicines and package holidays.
Underlying inflation, i.e., excluding the effect of fresh and seasonal products, energy and fuels, rose slightly on the previous month (0.2%), but remained below the year-on-year rise in the index (1.5%).
While the price of domestic products rose by 0.3% compared with November, the price of imported products contracted by 0.7%, a trend also observed on an annual basis, with values of 2.3% and -0.2%, respectively.
This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. You can find them here.
If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to english@swissinfo.ch.
External Content
Your subscription could not be saved. Please try again.
Almost finished… We need to confirm your email address. To complete the subscription process, please click the link in the email we just sent you.
What do you think Switzerland’s Alain Berset can bring to the Council of Europe?
The former interior minister is to become the first Swiss Secretary General of the Council of Europe – which issues should his five-year term focus on?
How is your country dealing with the return of stolen artifacts?
Western nations like Switzerland often have to deal with the process of recovering or returning looted artifacts which have been illegally imported. What’s the situation like in your country?
Norwegian zombie film wins main prize at Swiss festival NIFFF
This content was published on
More than 55,000 people celebrated the fantastic film at the International Fantastic Film Festival in Neuchâtel (NIFFF) - fewer than last year.
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.