Government ends 2009 in the black
The Swiss government closed the 2009 budget with a higher-than-expected surplus of SFr2.7 billion ($2.5 billion), the finance ministry said on Tuesday.
This content was published on February 16, 2010 - 13:25The figures came despite the recession, the finance ministry said in a statement. It had expected to end the year with a SFr1.8 billion surplus.
Switzerland’s fiscal health stands in contrast to that of the United States and other European countries, many of whom were forced to borrow massively to finance bank bailouts and government stimulus packages.
Last autumn Finance Minister Hans-Rudolf Merz predicted a surplus of SFr700 million, blaming the global economic crisis and weaker-than-expected public accounts. The “clear improvement” came from additional receipts and reduced expenditure, the finance ministry said.
“The year-end account 2009 all the more remarkable because parliament agreed to more than SFr1 billion extra funds for economic stablisation,” it pointed out.
The government’s sale last August of its nine per cent stake in troubled big bank UBS, taken when it bailed out the bank in 2008, brought in SFr7.2 billion. SFr6.8 billion of this amount was from non-recurrent revenue.
UBS last week reported its first quarterly net profit after four quarters of losses.
swissinfo.ch and agencies
This article was automatically imported from our old content management system. If you see any display errors, please let us know: community-feedback@swissinfo.ch

In compliance with the JTI standards
More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative
Contributions under this article have been turned off. You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here. Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.