China's Entrepreneur Confidence Index continued to fall in the third quarter of this year, with increasing worries about probable overheating of the national economy, according to findings of a central bank survey released on Thursday.

The survey, conducted by the People's Bank of China on the basis of 5,635 questionnaires, found that the index stood at 77 percent in the July-September period, a record decline of 6.4 percentage points on the same period of last year.

The indicator moved down 5.1 percentage points in the second quarter.

The survey showed 37.9 percent of respondents thought prices of means of production would rise, up 6.9 percentage points from the April-June period and nine percentage points from the same period last year.

Around 29.2 percent of the entrepreneurs forecast market demand would remain high, up 0.4 percentage points from the second quarter and 4.7 percentage points from last year.

A record 39.2 percent were satisfied with the performance of their enterprises, up 1.2 percentage points from the previous quarter and four percentage points from a year earlier.

The Entrepreneur Confidence Index measures the understanding, views and projections of entrepreneurs.

In a related development, China's banker confidence index hit a record low at 21 percent for the third quarter of this year, due largely to increasing worries about possible economic overheating, according to a questionnaire-based survey jointly conducted by the central bank and the National Bureau of Statistics.

However, the country's bank index to measure the performance of commercial banks remained high at 70.6 percent, the survey showed.

(Xinhua News Agency September 21, 2007)