ST GALLEN, Switzerland, May 5 (Reuters) - Swiss National Bank Chairman Thomas Jordan said on Friday that the central bank might have to further tighten its monetary policy to ensure that inflation returns to its target range.
Speaking at a symposium at the University of St Gallen, Jordan said that the best contribution a central bank could make for the public was to ensure price stability.
"We cannot exclude that it will again be necessary to further tighten monetary policy," Jordan said, echoing his earlier comments and those of fellow policymakers.
"We need to make sure that inflation goes back into the range of price stability," he said.
Data earlier on Friday showed annual inflation slowed to 2.6% in April from 2.9% in March, more than forecast.
But even though considerably lower than in many other countries, inflation has remained above the SNB's target range of between 0% and 2% since February 2022, prompting the central bank to raise rates at its last four quarterly meetings.
The SNB last raised rates by 50 basis points in March, bringing its benchmark to 1.5%, and many analysts have been expecting the central bank to hike rates at least one more time when it meets next on June 22.
While inflation globally has been coming down from its multi-decade peaks, central bankers around the world are not quite done yet with their monetary tightening campaigns to bring price growth back under control.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Federal Reserve raised its benchmark rate by another quarter of a percentage point and the European Central Bank followed suit on Thursday.
