bear joint responsibility for them. first and foremost, the law describes these tasks as conceptional and operational monetary policy decisions. the chairman does not have any special powers. consequently, responsibility is shared. transparency and accountability are crucial, particularly in times of crisis, when the information needs of the general public and financial markets, as well as other authorities, are increasing exponentially. we have responded to this need. for instance, information on central bank balance sheet items and snb bills has been stepped up, and our news conferences can now be watched on our website. during the course of the crisis, in particular, at the time of the measures to strengthen the swiss financial system in october 2008, the number of appearances of governing board members before parliamentary commissions increased significantly. 8 i would like to hazard a guess that the snb has never been as transparent as it is today. in this respect, it also stands up well to international comparison. this is also laid down in the message on the revision of the national bank act with regard to art. 7 para. 1 nba ( 6191 ), “ the snb ’ s decision - making autonomy must be retained because its accountability would otherwise inevitably come into conflict with its authority to act independently of instructions ( under art. 6 ). ” consequently, the snb bears “ sole responsibility for the mandates described in art. 5 ” while the federal council, in turn, “ is solely responsible for the economic decisions that fall within its area of responsibility. ” in 2010, members of the governing board appeared 13 times before parliamentary commissions. bis central bankers ’ speeches however, central bank independence has its pitfalls. a latent threat to such independence can, in principle, always be said to exist. this threat is particularly great in times of crisis. consequently it was right and important, during the recent crisis, for central banks around the world to work closely with governments. however, the risk now is that false expectations have been raised amongst politicians. central banks need to remain firm and concentrate on their monetary policy mandate. while it was necessary to be close to other government authorities at a time of emergency, now that the crisis has been confined, a little more distance is in order. as i outlined at the beginning, the snb has also taken exceptional measures in order to fulfil its mandate. in doing so, it has shown that it is prepared to make use of the independence it has been granted. what is essential here is that we are always guided

’ s gdp is likely to grow by around 1 % this year. in this environment, unemployment is likely to continue to rise gradually, and the utilisation of production capacity is likely to decline somewhat further. our forecast for switzerland, as for the global economy, is subject to significant uncertainty. the main risk is weaker economic activity abroad. monetary policy outlook ladies and gentlemen, allow me to return to our monetary policy. following the coronavirus pandemic, inflation rose strongly worldwide. in many countries, the increase in inflation proved to be more persistent than at first assumed. the snb began tightening its monetary policy at an early stage. we initially allowed the swiss franc to appreciate and then from june 2022 onwards raised the snb policy rate by a total of 2. 5 percentage points. in addition to this, we sold foreign exchange. page 3 / 6 zurich, 21 march 2024 thomas jordan, martin schlegel and antoine martin news conference tightening monetary conditions in this way had various advantages. first, the appreciation of the swiss franc significantly weakened the transmission of inflation from abroad. the increase in inflation in switzerland was therefore considerably smaller than in other countries. second, we had to raise our policy rate only moderately by international comparison. this also prevented a stronger rise in the mortgage reference interest rate. the tightening of our monetary policy led to inflation being above 2 % only for a short time, and rapidly decreased from its peak of 3. 5 % in august 2022 to the current level of 1. 2 %. inflation expectations remained well anchored throughout this period. overall, the secondround effects were limited. over the past three months, the underlying inflationary pressure has decreased further. this is reflected in our conditional inflation forecast, which we have revised down significantly compared with december. it is within the range of price stability over the entire forecast horizon. having already decided in december to no longer focus on sales of foreign exchange, we can now lower the snb policy rate by 0. 25 percentage points to 1. 5 %. our decision takes into account the significantly reduced inflationary pressure as well as the appreciation of the swiss franc in real terms over the past year. it also supports economic activity. with today ’ s easing, we are ensuring that monetary conditions remain appropriate. however, in the current environment uncertainty is still elevated. we will therefore monitor the ongoing development of inflation closely. if necessary we will adjust our monetary policy again. we also remain willing to be active