At its annual press conference on Monday, the organisation revealed that Swiss exports to the US fell 3.3% last year to SFr13.8 billion, whilst imports from the US declined by 17.3% to SFr5.4 billion.

Speaking to the Swissinfo news service, the Chamber's new chief executive, Martin Naville suggested that the decline could partly be explained by Swiss consumers turning away from US products in protest at certain of President Bush's policies.

"American products in favour a few years ago are currently out of favour and these are products which follow the daily political volatility rather than the very strong underlying business relationship," he observed.

Another likely explanation for the downward trend in bilateral trade could be the fact that the United States has recovered from the global economic slowdown of 2000 and 2001 faster than Europe, journalists attending the press conference were told. The lesser economic impact of the war in Iraq on the US compared to its impact on Europe has also been cited as a contributory factor to the decline.

However, Mr Naville did not appear too concerned about the situation overall, according to Swissinfo, which quoted him as observing that:

"It has to be said that [trade] is falling back from an extremely high level. Over the past 30 years, trade has quadrupled and the business relationship between Switzerland and the US is [still] very healthy."