The high standing of the Barometer in December is driven mainly by the positive development of the indicators for the banking sector, after a less positive development in the last month. Further positive contributions come from the export sector and to a smaller extent from the indicators for manufacturing, consumption and accommodation, whereas the indicators for construction have slowed down the development a bit.

Within the manufacturing sector, the developments are mixed. The textile and wood processing industries show a clear upward trend. On the other hand, the prospects for the machinery and the electrical equipment industry have deteriorated clearly. The food industry also sees a negative trend, while the paper and the metal industries develop more or less sideways.  The architecture and engineering firms show a more or less stable development in December.

In the goods producing sector (manufacturing and construction), the indicators for preliminary products move upwards. The orders and the production have slowed down in December, while the indicators for the general situation, the export demand, and the competitive and capacity development move sideways.

KOF Economic Barometer and reference time series: annual update

In September 2017, the scheduled annual update of the KOF Economic Barometer took place. The annual update of the Barometer concerns the following steps: redefinition of the pool of indicators that enter the selection procedure, update of the reference time series and renewed execution of the variable selection procedure. The updated reference series is the smoothed continuous growth rate of the Swiss Gross Domestic Product (GDP) according to the new System of National Accounts ESVG 2010, released in early September 2017, which takes into account the release of the previous year’s annual GDP data by the Swiss Federal Statistical Office. As a result of the indicator variable selection procedure, the updated KOF Economic Barometer is now based on 273 indicators (instead of 272 as in the previous vintage) from a pool of almost 500 potential indicator series. They are combined using statistically determined weights.