KOF Business Situation Indicator: Swiss Companies Report Significant Improvement of Their Business Situation
- KOF Business Situation Indicator
- KOF Bulletin
In May 2018, the KOF Business Situation Indicator for the Swiss private economy improved substantially, overcoming the two slight dampeners of March and April, and following up on the positive trend that prevailed until February. The Swiss economy is enjoying a pronounced upswing.
In May, only the construction-related industries failed to record a rise in the Business Situation Indicator, while all other sectors of the economy reported a substantial gain. Following a decline in the preceding month, the indicator for the manufacturing industry rose substantially in May. The financial and insurance service providers reported an improvement of their business situation. The upward trend was most pronounced in the retail trade, which managed to make up April’s significant setback. Only the construction-related industries are clouding the positive picture: Although remaining predominantly positive, the business situation slowed down slightly in both the construction sector and the project engineering sector. Wholesalers, hotel and catering businesses and the other service providers were last surveyed in April. At the time, the business situation was improving in the hotel and catering industry and among the other service providers, while wholesalers reported little change
From a regional perspective, the business situation has improved in the almost all of the regions. The indicator went up in Espace Mittelland, Eastern Switzerland, North-West Switzerland and in the Zurich region. The Lake Geneva region also recorded a substantial improvement and reduced the gap to the other regions. In Ticino and Central Switzerland, the Business Situation Indicator remained more or less at the level of the previous month.
Explanation:
Graph G 4 presents the KOF business situation across all sectors covered by the survey. The business situation in sectors which are surveyed on a quarterly basis is kept constant during the intervening months.
Graph G 5 presents the business situation in the main regions according to the Federal Statistics Office. The regions are coloured according to business situation. The arrows in the regions indicate the change in the business situation compared to the previous month. An upward-pointing arrow, for instance, indicates that the situation has improved over the previous month.
The KOF business situation is based on more than 4,500 reports from businesses in Switzerland. Each month businesses are surveyed in the economic sectors of industry, retail trade, construction, project engineering and financial and insurance services. Businesses in the hotel and catering sector, wholesalers and other service providers are surveyed quarterly in the first month of each quarter. Businesses are requested, amongst other things, to assess their current business situation. They may class their situation as “good”, “satisfactory” or “bad”. The balance of the current business situation is the percentage difference between the answers “good” and “bad”.