Bankers worry about overheated economy

Over 60 percent of Chinese bankers think the economy is overheated, and many of them see no change for the better in the next quarter, an investigation has revealed.

A survey of 2,850 banking institutions put the Bankers' Confidence Index at 43.8 percent, 16.1 percentage points lower than the previous quarter, the People's Bank of China (PBOC), the central bank, said Tuesday when releasing the figures.

The surveyed bankers are presidents of both local and foreign banks and senior managers at provincial and city level subsidiaries. 46.1 percent of them predicted China's economy will remain overheated in the fourth quarter of this year.

The Bankers' Confidence Index rose to 82.4 percent in the first quarter of this year, the highest figure since the survey was started by the People's Bank of China at the beginning of last year.

The slump in the confidence index shows that bankers are increasingly pessimistic about the prospects of the macro economy, the central bank said.

Bankers were more confident about their own industry. The widely-touted Renminbi appreciation and the big differences in interest rates paid on deposits and loans made them optimistic about the prospects of the country's commercial banks.

More than half the bankers surveyed - 57 percent - felt that Chinese monetary policies were "appropriate" but the figure nevertheless represents a decline of 11.9 percentage points on the previous quarter.

Source: Xinhua