China's entrepreneurs are less confident about the world's second largest economy as the nation's GDP slowed to a three-year low, a major business index showed Friday.

The entrepreneur confidence index, a gauge of the understanding, views and projections of business people, dropped to 121.2 in the second quarter, 1.8 points lower than the first quarter, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said.

The index measuring their current thinking slid 1.1 points from the previous quarter to 120.1 while that gauging their future expectations dropped 2.3 points to 121.9.

By industry, the index for real estate developers rose the most 13.5 points, while that for wholesalers and retailers were down the most 12.3 points.

In terms of type of enterprises, the index of foreign-invested enterprises registered the fastest recovery while that of the joint ownership enterprises saw the most decline.

By scale of enterprises, entrepreneur confidence in medium-sized business weakened the most and those in the small business weakened mildly.

China's economy cooled to 7.6 percent in the second quarter, the lowest reading since the third quarter of 2009, as a result of sluggish exports, the cooling-down domestic property market and its self-geared slowdown of fixed-asset investment.

The quarterly index is calculated on the basis of a survey targeted at about 21,000 firms nationwide. A reading of 100 demarcates optimism from pessimism.

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