FEATURE-Soccer-Euro 2008 will not save Swiss economic slowdown

By Sven Egenter

ZURICH, May 14 (Reuters) - Hundreds of thousands of soccer fans will spend millions of francs on beer, bratwurst and beds at Euro 2008 next month.

The world's third-largest sports event will be no more than a drop in the ocean for the Swiss economy, however, and will not save the Alpine nation from following the rest of the world into slowdown.

"The economic effect is so small, it will be hard to detect in the statistics," said Urs Mueller, director of Switzerland's BAK Basel economics research institute.

Up to 1.4 million foreigner visitors will add business for hotels and restaurants and for retailers selling merchandise and food, and may create 7,500 jobs, though most of them will be temporary.

That could create an additional gross value added of up to 860 million Swiss francs ($813.6 million), a Swiss government study showed, making up less than 0.2 percent of the Swiss economy which has a size of some $420 billion.

Switzerland, which is co-hosting the June 7-29 event with Austria, has been experiencing its strongest boom in decades over the last four years but is now losing steam as a global slowdown and credit crisis take their toll.

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