ZURICH, March 6 (Reuters) - Consumer prices posted an unexpected rise in February as higher food prices and rent increases outweighed falling energy costs.
Consumer prices rose 0.2 percent compared with January and where also 0.2 percent higher than a year ago, the Federal Statistics Office said on Friday.
In a Reuters poll of economists, the median forecast was for
a 0.1 percent year-on-year decline after inflation stood at a
0.1 percent in January.
The Swiss National Bank, which has slashed interest rates to close to zero, is expected to cut its target for the 3-month Swiss franc LIBOR by another quarter of a percentage point to 0.25 percent next week and use unconventional means to boost the economy.
Switzerland faces its deepest recession in decades this year as exporters suffer from the collapse of global trade, although the country is holding up much better than its trading partners such as Germany, thanks to its robust consumer spending.
(Reporting by Sven Egenter; editing by David Stamp)