The Swiss franc was higher against the dollar in early trade on Monday after the SNB chairman said further interest rate rises were in the pipeline to fight inflation in remarks published over the weekend.
"The weak franc influences the prices of imported goods. We are therefore importing inflation and we have to watch that closely," Swiss National Bank Chairman Jean-Pierre Roth told newspaper SonntagsBlick in an interview.
"If we were to leave interest rates where they are in this period of good business cycle development, we would have to expect inflation in the long term. We thus have interest rate rises in the pipeline," Roth was quoted as saying.
The franc was 0.21 percent higher against the dollar at 1.2374 per dollar. Against the euro, the franc was down 0.01 percent at 1.5921 per euro, just above a 6-1/2-year low of 1.5983 per euro hit last week as low Swiss interest rates made the franc a funding currency for carry trades.
The SNB has left little doubt that it will continue to raise rates gradually, and with Swiss inflation way below the SNB's ceiling of 2 percent most analysts see no reason for the central bank to step up its pace of tightening.
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