China business confidence tends to stabilize in the third quarter of 2004, with the business climate index climbing 0.2 points from the second quarter to 134.6 points,a rise of 1.6 points year on year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) released on Friday.

In the second quarter, the business climate index, a quarterly barometer of industrial confidence, saw a substantial growth of 17.8 points over the same period last year when severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) was epidemic, but dropped 1.5 points from the first quarter.

According to NBS statistics, the operation of most industrial enterprises reported gradual improvement in the third quarter, while the climate indexes in trades of wholesale and retail, accommodation and catering declined fractionally.

The business climate indexes of state-owned enterprises, large corporations, high-tech companies and enterprises in western Chinaclimbed steadily, while those of the small and medium-sized enterprises, listed companies, and enterprises in east and centralChina ebbed.

In terms of the categorized indexes, comprehensive slow-down was seen in the growth of production, sales, orders, labor force demand and fixed-asset investment of nearly all industries under survey.

Among them, production and project contracts indexes for building industry dropped more significantly, both decreasing by more than 11 points from the previous quarter.

Source: Xinhua