China's entrepreneur confidence index remained stable amid prospects of a global economic slowdown, statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed on Tuesday.

The index, which measured the understanding, views and projections of entrepreneurs, reached 140.6 points in the first quarter of this year, 1 point higher than the October-December period.

Of the 19,500 companies surveyed nationwide, 56 percent of the entrepreneurs were optimistic about the overall performance of their industries, and 61.1 percent forecast a good performance for their companies in 2008.

Entrepreneurs in the IT and software businesses were the most confident, followed by those from the retail and wholesale trade as well as the construction sector.

However, entrepreneurs from the property sector were less confident, with the index slipped 6.8 points over the last quarter of 2007.

The bureau released the business climate index on Monday. The key gauge of corporate performance dropped 7.4 points in the first quarter compared with the October-December period. NBS said the severe snow storms in late January and the slowdown of the world economy had negative impacts on the business performance.

(Xinhua News Agency April 9, 2008)