The People’s Bank today published its three quarterly surveys – of 20,000 urban households (depositors) with bank accounts, 5,000 businesses and 3,100 banks. These surveys provide a comprehensive snapshot of conditions on the ground in China.
The business survey for Q3 makes for gloomy reading. The headline index on firms’ confidence in the state of the economy fell to its lowest since the trough in 2009. (See Chart 1.) Firms’ sentiment about their own circumstances deteriorated too, with this index falling below 50 for the first time since 1999. (See Chart 2.)
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David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal.
He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.
