Private consumption in the second quarter remained at the same level as in the previous year. Positive developments were seen in the categories Miscellaneous goods and services, Housing and Energy, as well as in Communications consumption, while the Health, Leisure and Culture, Food and Beverage as well as Clothing and Shoes consumption categories showed signs of decline. Government consumption declined once more (-0.1%).

Fixed investments expanded by 2.1% compared to the first quarter of 2010, whereby con-struction spending was slightly slower at 1.3% than Equipment and software investments which expanded by 2.8%. Investments were particularly positive in the metal working and mechanical engineering industries.

The exports of goods and services grew by +1.7%. After a dynamic first quarter in 2010, goods exports increased only slightly (+0.1%). Services exports, however, accelerated and expanded by 5.3% compared to the previous quarter. This expansion was merely the result of an extraordinary growth in the trade with raw materials. The import of goods and services recorded growth of 4.6%. The increased import of goods (+4.0%) is to a large extent the re-sult of the strong expansion in the import of jewelry. After a significant decline in the previous quarter, service imports grew by 6.9%.

On the production side, fastest growth of added value was observed primarily in the indus-trial sector (+2.0%), in the financial services sector (+1.6%) as well as in the construction industry (+0.9%). Growth was modest in the areas dominated by public services (+0.1%), while added value in the commerce, hospitality, transport and communications services sec-tors (-0.1%) as well as agriculture (-0.5%) actually declined.

Compared to the corresponding quarter in the previous year the gross domestic product deflator stagnated while the consumption deflator expanded by 0.5%. While prices for equipment declined once again (-2.0%), those for construction investment expanded by 1.0% once more, after several negative quarters. Export prices were 1.0% below the same levels for the previous year and the import prices fell by 0.4%.

*Unless otherwise stated the percentage changes listed here refer to the previous quarter from seasonally and price adjusted figures (not annualised). “Real” is used to describe the formulation «data at previous year prices, quarterly chained series with reference year 2000».

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The quarterly estimates (Quarterly Accounts) were adjusted to the revised yearly figures of the National Accounts for 2007, 2008 and to the first annual estimate for 2009 of the Federal Statistical Office (FSO). Despite the more significant fall in GDP for 2009 (-1.9%), the revi-sion to the new yearly figures had no major influence on the start and the end of GDP con-traction. Just as prior to the revision, the third quarter of 2008 marked the beginning of the economic contraction and the third quarter of 2009 marked the beginning of the expansion. Notable is the fact that the GDP in the second quarter of 2010, at constant prices, had reached again its pre-crisis level (first semester 2008).

Publisher:

State Secretariat for Economic Affairs

Internet: http://www.seco.admin.ch