The Swiss National Bank will probably have to raise borrowing costs again to tame consumer-price growth, according to President Thomas Jordan.
“If you look at our inflation forecasts and interpret them correctly, then you’ll see that from today’s perspective monetary policy possibly isn’t tight enough to anchor price stability,” Jordan told public broadcaster SRF in a radio interview aired on Saturday. “We can’t completely prevent second-round effects — that would be an illusion — but we have to fight them.”
Switzerland’s central bank this week lifted interest rates a fifth consecutive time, though it slowed the pace of increases to a quarter point. Markets anticipate another such move by the end of the year.
Jordan also told SRF that the central bank can influence consumer price growth via the exchange rate of the Swiss franc. Its appreciation in recent years — thanks to SNB currency sales — “protected us from imported inflation,” he said, highlighting the “huge difference” between inflation rates in Switzerland and elsewhere.
