Switzerland's emergency measures to counter the effects of the pandemic cost less than expected. This would enable the government to pay down the debt within a decade.

A raft of measures from Bern late in March including a 40 billion Swiss franc ($42 billion) lending bazooka to shore up the economy looks to cost less than expected: the measures will incur 20 billion francs in extraordinary costs, instead of 31 billion francs forecast, Swiss daily «Neue Zuercher Zeitung» (behind paywall, in German) reported on Wednesday.

The largest chunk of the costs is for so-called short-time working schemes, where businesses can reduce staff work hours but employees are still paid a portion of their salary through the social security insurance of the state. Of the 20 billion francs set aside for this arrangement, it has roughly 5 billion to 6 billion left over, the newspaper reported.

Cautious Spending

The government also didn't tap much in funds allotted to freelancers and self-employed workers. Separately, the Swiss army didn't spend much of its 2.5 billion franc budget for emergency supplies like face masks.

In all, the government won't exhaust more than 20 billion francs of emergency spending – provided that Switzerland doesn't suffer a serious second wave of the virus. This means the government, with annual dividends from the Swiss central bank of up to 1.3 billion francs as well as «leftover» credit of up to 1 billion francs, can reduce the new debt incurred by the measures within ten years, «NZZ» reports.