like to turn to economic developments abroad, as these have a considerable bearing on the inflation and economic outlook in switzerland. the past few months have seen further improvements in the international environment. the global economy exhibited strong, broad - based growth in the third quarter. international trade, in particular, remained very dynamic. in view of companies ’ improved capacity utilisation and growing confidence, investment continued to recover. developments in employment remained positive, which helped to raise household confidence, too. in most countries, inflation moved sideways. economic signals for the coming months are positive, as well. we expect the global economy to continue developing favourably. for the euro area and the us, we have revised our growth forecasts slightly upwards. economic recovery and convergence with the inflation target are most advanced in the us. this prompted the us federal reserve to carry out a number of interest rate adjustments and to initiate the reduction of the balance sheet this year. the coming quarters are likely to see a gradual continuation of monetary policy normalisation in the us. by contrast, the european central bank intends to pursue its asset purchase programme until at least september 2018, and to leave its key rates unchanged beyond that horizon. in japan, too, monetary policy is expected to remain expansionary. alongside the global economic baseline scenario, the risks also need to be taken into consideration. in the short term, global growth could be stronger than projected in the baseline scenario, due to the significant upturn in household and business confidence. in the medium term, however, risks for the international economy are still to the downside. these risks include ongoing structural weaknesses, political developments in certain countries, and potential international tensions. furthermore, the normalisation of monetary policy in the advanced economies presents challenges. an abrupt rise in the currently very low capital market interest rates and risk premia, in particular, could negatively impact the global economy. swiss economic outlook i shall now turn to the economic outlook for switzerland. gdp grew in the third quarter at an annualised 2. 5 %, lending further momentum to the economic recovery. growth was primarily driven by manufacturing, which benefited from page 2 / 4 berne, 14 december 2017 thomas jordan news conference dynamic global economic developments and the weaker swiss franc. accordingly, exports recorded marked gains. investment in equipment also grew noticeably. in the wake of this development, capacity utilisation in manufacturing increased further. the overall economic situation improved, too. higher capacity utilisation, a more robust earnings situation and favourable global economic

environment began to present a perceptibly brighter picture, turnover also picked up. this, together with the more confident investor sentiment, reduced volatility. the ambitious profit expectations now reflected in share prices suggest that market players are optimistic about the economic situation and the corporate environment. to sum up, the financial markets are currently influenced by a complex interplay of factors : a globally synchronised economic recovery is taking place against a backdrop of external imbalances. an autonomous economic recovery outside of the us - underpinned, not least of all, by supply - side reforms - would help substantially to redress these imbalances. key features of the snb ’ s future investment and risk control process the snb ’ s investment activity is subordinated to monetary policy and is determined by the criteria of liquidity, risk and returns. the new national bank law will extend the snb ’ s investment opportunities. the current national bank law ( nbl ) limits eligible investments to gold and fixed - interest securities, and eligible borrowers to states, international organisations and banks. article 9 of the new nbl defines a wider scope of possible transactions. this allows the national bank to further optimise the structure of its investments with a view to specific central bank needs. as part of this process, we are also evaluating the possibility of enlarging the investment universe. however, such an extension would raise a number of fundamental questions that will first need to be examined. before the new law enters into force, we will establish and publish investment policy directives setting out how the governing board plans to make use of the extended investment policy scope. while our assets have already been managed largely in conformity with the principles of modern asset management, improvements were nevertheless called for. it was essential to bring our internal investment and risk control processes into line with the new legal framework. the opportunities for diversification brought about by additional investment instruments would, in principle, reduce the market risk of the investments. at the same time, though, the snb would incur new risks, e. g. additional credit risks. in addition, corporate governance is to be enhanced. the primary goal is to segregate powers as far as possible : firstly between monetary policy and investment policy operations, secondly between investment strategy and its implementation through asset management, and thirdly between risk taking and risk controlling. there are limits to the principle of segregation of powers insofar as the governing board is responsible both for monetary policy and investment