Swiss watch industry exports rose strongly at the beginning of 2018. Their value stood at 1.6 billion francs in January, equivalent to 12.6% growth against January 2017. This is due to benefiting from the dynamic performance of previous months and a favourable base effect.
Many markets experienced strong growth in January, such as Hong Kong (+21.3%) which posted its highest monthly increase for over five years. With a still stronger increase, China (+44.3%) climbed up to second place, overtaking the United States (-1.9%), which has been declining for more than two years. Like its Asian neighbours, Japan (+12.9%) also confirmed the strong performance of recent months. Overall, the European markets lagged behind somewhat, apart from France (+19.0%). While the United Kingdom bounced back to +4.6%, Germany (-4.1%) reported a fall, as too did Italy (-4.7%). In the middleeast Bahrain (570.7 %.), Kuwait (86.2%) and Saudi Arabia (32.6%) experienced a strong growth in January 2018. Whereas UAE (-0.6%) and Qatar (-22.2%) reported a fall in Swiss Watch exports January 2018.