(Adds details)
March 22 (Reuters) - Switzerland's fourth-quarter
current account surplus widened to 15 billion Swiss francs
($16.25 billion), 6 billion higher than in the same quarter of
2021, the Swiss National Bank (SNB) said on Wednesday.
"Primary income (lower expenses surplus), goods trade
(higher receipts surplus) as well as services trade (lower
expenses surplus) contributed to this increase" the SNB said in
a statement.
For 2022 as a whole, the Swiss current account surplus
increased from 64.4 billion francs to reach 77.7 billion francs.
The figure was the second highest on record, lagging
only the 81 billion franc surplus reported for 2010.
In the fourth quarter, Switzerland's reserve assets fell
to 852 billion Swiss francs from 873 billion francs at the end
of September, as the central bank sold some of its vast FX
reserves.
The SNB has been more active in the foreign currency
markets recently, selling foreign currencies in exchange for
francs to maintain the value of the safe haven currency.
The move - designed to check inflation from more
expensive imports - is a reversal from the SNB's previous stance
of buying foreign currencies to weaken the Swiss franc.
($1 = 0.9228 Swiss francs)
(Reporting by John Revill in Zurich, Tristan Chabba, Andrey
Sychev, Anastasiia Kozlova in Gdansk; Editing by Miranda Murray
and Toby Chopra)
andrey.sychev2@thomsonreuters.com,
anastasiia.kozlova@thomsonreuters.com))
