Off the wire
• 2nd LD-Writethru: Chinese banks' net forex sales rise mildly  • Roundup: Olympic Flame for 2016 Rio Summer Olympics lit in birthplace of Games  • Kenya launches global certification for financial markets  • Google unveils mobile app to tackle traffic gridlock in Kenya  • China's farmland drops slightly in 2015  • Commentary: China's determined to participate in global anti-corruption campaign, with the help of law  • Roundup: African prosecutors mull judicial cooperation to fight impunity  • Int'l coalition against IS plans to liberate Mosul, Rekka by year-end: French minister  • 2 killed, 4 injured in Afghan bomb attacks  • Stimac quits leading Iran's Sepahan soccer team  
You are here: 　 Home

Swiss watch industry suffers steep decline as exports plummet in March

Xinhua, April 21, 2016 Adjust font size:

Swiss watch exports in March 2016 totalled 1.5 billion CHF (about 1.55 billion U.S. dollars), down 16.1 percent from last year, the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry reported on Thursday.

Representing the lowest March figures since 2011, the federation indicated in a statement that "the scale of the downturn is also unusual since we must go back to the crisis of 2009 to find rates of variation of this order."

Exports to all major markets bar Germany declined last month, with exports to China's Hong-Kong and the United States dropping by close to 38 and 33 percent respectively.

Meanwhile, Swiss watch exports to the Chinese mainland fell by 13.7 percent.

According to the federation, exports of watches costing between 500 and 3,000 CHF showed a smaller decline than timepieces whose prices were either inferior to 200 CHF or above 3,000 CHF.

The 200 to 500 CHF price-range fared the worst, falling as much as 27.1 percent both in terms of value and volume. (1 U.S. dollar = 0.97 Swiss Franc) Endit