BUSINESS confidence among entrepreneurs in China has picked up for the second quarter in a row in 2016, according to surveys by the People’s Bank of China published yesterday.

    The entrepreneurs’ confidence index rose to 51.2 percent in the third quarter, 2.2 percentage points higher than in the second quarter, a central bank survey showed.

    China’s factory output and retail sales grew faster than expected in August as a strong housing market and a government infrastructure spending spree underpinned growth in the world’s second-largest economy.

    A separate central bank survey published yesterday showed that a bankers’ confidence index rose to 46.5 percent in the third quarter, 2.8 percentage points higher than in April-June.

    The survey showed 19.7 percent of bankers believed monetary policy would be relatively loose in the fourth quarter of this year.

    The central bank has cut interest rates six times since November 2014 and reduced the amount of cash that banks must set aside as reserves.

    Another survey by the central bank showed that 53.7 percent of households rated housing prices as “unacceptably high,” up 0.3 percentage points from the second quarter.

    The proportion of residents prepared to buy property in the next three months rose to 16.3 percent in the third quarter, 1.3 percentage points higher than the previous quarter, the survey showed.

    (SD-Agencies)