Chinese entrepreneurs unshaken by global downturn risks

China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said confidence among entrepreneurs in China remains stable despite risks of a global downturn, state media reported. The NBS’s entrepreneur confidence index, which measures the views and expectations of entrepreneurs, for the first quarter of 2008 was given as 140.6 points, a one-point rise over the previous quarter. Of the entrepreneurs surveyed at 19,500 companies across China, 56% were optimistic about the overall performance of their industries. However, respondents from the property sector were less confident: The index for that industry fell 6.8 points from the previous quarter.