Switzerland’s export competitiveness weakens as CHF overvaluation exceeds 10% against USD, pressuring key sectors excluding watches.
Switzerland’s export market share gains since 2019 vanish when excluding precious metals, revealing structural weaknesses in medicines, chemicals, and machinery. The Swiss franc’s overvaluation—more than 10% against the USD by OECD purchasing power parity—has compounded pressure on price competitiveness, particularly as the currency strengthens against the euro.
Excluding precious metals, Swiss exporters lost market share in major categories, with medicines suffering double-digit declines since 2019. While China gained ground, other competitors captured most of the lost share. Watches remain a resilient outlier, highlighting sectoral disparities in the franc’s impact.
The franc is the only G10 currency deemed overvalued against the dollar, amplifying challenges for exporters already grappling with an undervalued Chinese yuan.