Swiss govt sees lower 2023 financing deficit of 1.5 bln francs

Switzerland expects a financing deficit of 1.5 billion Swiss francs ($1.71 billion) for this year, the government said on Wednesday, lower than the 4.8 billion francs previously expected in the budget.

The improvement is due to the fact that a 4-billion-franc rescue mechanism for the electricity industry in the extraordinary budget would probably not be needed, the Swiss federal council said in a statement. ($1 = 0.8780 Swiss francs)