Entrepreneur Confidence Index declined in the Third Quarter
The results of nationwide survey showed that entrepreneur confidence index (ECI) gained
I. Most of industries had a fall of ECIs. In the third quarter, the ECIs of hotel and catering services stood at 139.5, rose 4.2 points, transport, storage and postal services stood at 128.9, remained the general quarter-on-quarter. The ECIs of information transmission, computer services and software industry, and wholesale and retail trade hit 159.8 and 143.0, significantly dropped 3.7 and 1.2 points, quarter-on-quarter. The ECIs of social services, construction, and industry reached 138.1, 131.8, and 125.8, decreased 1.4, 7.2, and 3.1 points, quarter-on-quarter. The ECI of real estate reached 99.9, dropped 7.6 points, quarter-on-quarter, and was obviously insufficient as compared with the other industries, which was the lowest in six consecutive quarters, and fell below the threshold in the third quarter.
II. Most types of enterprises registered had a decline in entrepreneurs’ confidence. In the third quarter, the ECIs of share-holding enterprises, foreign funded enterprises, enterprises invested by Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, state-owned enterprises, limited liability corporations, private enterprises, collective enterprises, and cooperative enterprises stood at 133.1, 132.9, 131.2, 130.7, 126.5, 122.5, 117.9 and 112.8, dropped in the range between 2-6 points, quarter-on-quarter, or year-on-year.
III. The ECIs of large, medium and small-sized enterprises was gradient descent. In the third quarter, the ECIs of large, medium and small-sized enterprises reached 138.2, 129.7 and 119.1, dropped 3.8, 3.6 and 0.7 points respectively, the drop rate has narrowed over the second quarter.
IV. The ECIs of eastern, central and western regions declined. The ECIs of central region was 132.4, remained the general level, quarter-on-quarter, eastern and western regions was 127.4 and 129.6, declined 5.0 and 3.2 points, quarter-on-quarter. The ECIs of eastern, central and western regions fell as compared with the same period of previous year.
Notes: Preparation Instructions for BCI and ECI
Sources of BCI and ECI came from the Business Climate Survey of NBS
Business Climate Survey was a regular quarterly survey. The Survey covered industry, construction, transportation, storage and postal industry, wholesale and retail trade, real estate, social services, information transmission, computer services and software, hotel and catering. The Survey covered nearly 20,000 sample enterprises selected from different industries, different sized, and different types of registration, based on a combination of key-point investigation and sampling survey methods. The respondents are responsible persons of business corporations and corporation units regarding as corporations for statistical purpose.
Business Climate Survey was a questionnaire survey, by quantifying and processing the results of entrepreneurs’ judgment on the current macroeconomic environment and microeconomic operation status to calculate business climate index, and to comprehensively reflect the status of macroeconomic development, production and operation status of enterprises, and the trends of future development.
ECI comprehensively reflects the views and confidences of the entrepreneurs on macro-economy, and BCI comprehensively reflects the overall economic situation of production and operation of enterprises.
Climate index ranges between 0-200, 100 as the threshold. If the index is above 100, it reflects a boom tend of increasing or improving; if less than 100, it reflects a downward trend in economic conditions or recession; if equal to 100, it reflects little change in economic conditions.
The advantage of BCI and ECI is its wide coverage of the industries and higher comprehensiveness, the disadvantage is not as sensitive as manufacturing purchasing managers index (PMI), because PMI only reflects the changes in the current month, while that of BCI and ECI reflects the average changes of major industries in the three months.