switzerlands central bank on thursday hiked its key interest rate by 50 basis points despite the slowdown in swiss inflation the bank has joined a global tightening of monetary policy to tame inflation with further rate rises expected from the european central bank and bank of england later on thursday the us federal reserve on wednesday announced a smaller rate hike of half a percentage point but signalled it expected more increases in the future the swiss national bank said in a statement that it was raising its policy rate to 10 percent to counter increased inflationary pressure and a further spread of inflation swiss inflation reached 30 percent in november down from the 29year high of 35 percent in august the central bank said however inflation was likely to remain elevated for the time being the bank also revised its forecast for inflation predicting average annual inflation of 29 percent in 2022 and 24 percent in 2023 consumer prices are running higher than the banks official target level of two percent but it expects inflation to be back under that figure in 2024 the bank said it expected the swiss economy to grow by 20 percent in 2022 but said gdp would likely grow by around 05 percent next year weaker demand from abroad and the high energy prices are likely to curb economic activity markedly in the coming year it said