In the first quarter of 2009, the People s Bank of China conducted the business survey and collected 5563 valid responses. The survey shows:
In the first quarter, the business index continued to decline, but the supply of liquidity and production factors improved and a significantly larger proportion of businesses held a positive view of the prospect in the next quarter.
1.The index of businesses perception of the macroeconomic performance edged down and the concern over a fairly cold economy eased marginally
The businesses surveyed believe the economy is slowing down. In the first quarter, the index of companies perception of the macroeconomic performance was C38.6 percent, 5.9 percentage points lower than that in the fourth quarter of 2008, approaching the record low since the survey started in 1993. But the quarter-on-quarter decline was much smaller than the 35.7 percentage points decrease recorded in the previous quarter. The concern over a fairly cold economy eased appreciably, and the macroeconomic expectation index was C31.6 percent, 1 percentage point higher than that of the previous quarter.
2.Business performance index dropped and approached the stagnation zone, but at a slower pace
The survey shows that, having declined quarter by quarter since the first quarter of 2008, the business performance index dropped by 5.1 percentage points from the previous quarter to 7.5 percent in the first quarter of 2009, with a deceleration of 9.1 percentage points over the previous quarter. Companies show more confidence in business performance in the next quarter, and the business performance expectation index posted 12.8 percent, 3 percentage points higher than that in the fourth quarter of 2008.
3.Market demand remained sluggish, the domestic order index and the export index continued to slide but by a smaller margin
According to the survey, the product market demand index registered C7.8 percent in the first quarter, 4.1 percentage points lower than that in the previous quarter, recording the second negative quarterly figure in a row.
In the first quarter, the domestic order index that reflects domestic demand was C10.7 percent, representing a further drop of 4 percentage points from the previous quarter, but the decline was 9.1 percentage points smaller than that in the previous quarter. The export order index that reflects external demand dropped by 5 percentage points from the previous quarter to 17.8 percent, posting a deceleration of 10 percentage points from the previous quarter.
4.The bank-lending index rallied, and businesses liquidity management and debt servicing capacity improved
The survey shows that the bank-lending index rebounded in this quarter, gaining 7.6 percentage points to 15.8 percent after rising by 4.8 percentage points in the previous quarter. The liquidity management index and the debt-servicing index reached 8.4 percent and 16.1 percent respectively, up 2.1 and 0.6 percentage points from the previous quarter.
After the "Plan of Revitalizing the Ten Pillar Industries" was unveiled, the bank-lending index of the ten industries gained 8.2 percentage points in average, 0.6 percentage points higher than the average figure for all the industries.
