The Swiss central bank said Thursday that it was expecting to climb back into a healthy profit for the full year 2009, thanks partly to the booming price of gold and improvement in currency markets. "Consequently the overall profit is likely to come to 10 billion Swiss francs (R73 billion)," the Swiss National Bank said in a statement. That would exceed pre-crisis levels. The central bank made a loss of 4.7 billion Swiss francs as the financial crisis took hold the year before, forcing the bank to intervene on currency markets and help prop up ailing commercial bank UBS. The steep rise in gold prices resulted in valuation gains of about 7.3 billion francs, while improvements in foreign exchange brought about an additional two billion franc boost, the SNB added. The central bank is due to publish its full results in March. The bulk of SNB profits are re-distributed to Swiss federal and regional governments. - I-Net Bridge

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