Chinese bankers are only slightly less confident of the country's economic prospects than they were three months ago, according to a quarterly survey conducted by the central bank and the National Bureau of Statistics.

Though the index measuring bankers' confidence on the economy dipped 1.7 percentage points from the previous quarter, the drop was 17 percentage points less than in the fourth quarter of 2008.

About 50 percent of bankers surveyed thought the current monetary policy is appropriate, while 45.1 percent believed it is relatively relaxed, up by 26.2 percentage points from a quarter earlier. More than half of the respondents believed the monetary policy would remain unchanged in the second quarter of this year.

Moreover, the loan demand index edged up 5.6 percentage points from last quarter to reach 67.5 percent, with the demand from all industries increasing, according to the survey.

(China Daily March 14, 2009)