KOF Business Situation: Business Situation more Positive

The improvement in the business situation was driven in February by the economic sectors of banking and insurance alongside the manufacturing sector. The situation in the construction-related sectors of construction and project engineering is good and virtually unchanged. On the other hand, a decline was reported by retailers, who were already complaining of a rather negative business situation. Wholesalers, the hotel and catering sector and other service providers were most recently questioned in January. At that time, the situation had brightened up for other service providers, whilst it had barely changed in the hotel and catering sector. By contrast, wholesalers were more likely to report an unfavourable business situation.

Considered from a regional perspective, the business situation improved in most major regions used by the Federal Statistics Office (FSO). An improvement was apparent in North West Switzerland, Espace Mittelland, Eastern Switzerland, the Zurich region and the Lake Geneva region. The situation worsened in two regions: in Central Switzerland the situation is no longer as positive as it was last month. Ticino, which was previously already reporting the most unfavourable business situation, lost yet further ground.

Explanation

Graph G 6 shows the KOF business situation for all sectors of the economy covered by the survey. For sectors of the economy that are only surveyed quarterly, the business situation is maintained at the same level during the intervening months.

Graph G 7 reports the business situation in the major regions used by the Federal Statistics Office. The regions are coloured differently depending on the business situation. The arrows within the regions indicate the change in the business situation compared to the previous month. An arrow pointing upwards means that the situation has improved on the previous month.

The KOF business situation is based on more than 4,500 reports from businesses in Switzerland. Each month, businesses from the sectors of industry, retail, construction, project design and the financial and insurance services sector are surveyed. Businesses from the hotel and catering sector, wholesalers and other service providers are questioned quarterly in the first month of each quarter. Businesses are requested amongst other things to assess their current business situation. They may assess their situation as “good”, “satisfactory” or “bad”. The balance of the current business situation is the percentage difference between the answers "good" and "bad".