Swiss economy accelerates as pharma and chemicals drive growth
Thursday 3rd September 2026 on 15:15 in
Switzerland
Switzerland’s economy grew 1.5 percent in the second quarter of 2026, its strongest expansion in nearly five years, SRF reported. The country’s State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, known as Seco, said the chemicals and pharmaceuticals industry made a particularly large contribution.
Real gross domestic product rose 1.5 percent from the previous quarter on an adjusted basis between April and June, Seco said on Thursday. The figure confirmed an initial estimate published in mid-August.
Growth accelerated sharply after increases of 0.5 percent in each of the previous two quarters. The economy contracted in the third quarter of 2025. The last stronger quarterly expansion came in 2021, during the recovery from the coronavirus crisis.
Felicitas Kemeny, head of Seco’s economic cycle division, said the chemicals and pharmaceuticals industry contributed 0.7 percentage points to the second-quarter growth. She said it was difficult to determine from the available data whether the increase reflected genuine growth or timing effects.
The industry has developed very unevenly in recent quarters, Kemeny said, pointing out that it had recorded a significant decline in the previous quarter. The strong quarterly growth of the Swiss economy should therefore not be equated with a boom, she said.
Even excluding chemicals and pharmaceuticals, growth was relatively broad-based, according to Kemeny. Output increased in numerous other industries, while domestic demand also recovered after a weak start to the year.
Seco economists have so far forecast annual growth of 0.9 percent for 2026. The next forecast is due in two weeks, and Kemeny said an upward revision was possible after the stronger-than-expected second-quarter figures. She cautioned, however, that a leading indicator of economic activity had recently failed to match the strong readings of recent months.
Thomas Gitzel, chief economist at VP Bank, was more optimistic. He said the Swiss economy was performing well this year and attributed the development partly to an “astonishing recovery” in European industry. Although the second quarter’s rate of growth was unlikely to be repeated soon, he said growth rates should remain robust for now.