The most prominent change revealed in CKGSB’s large-scale quarterly survey of around 2,000 companies from China’s industrial sector was a significant rise in product prices in 2016 Q4, with production costs seen as the main driving factor. Meanwhile, the survey’s overall Business Sentiment Index (BSI) stood at 46, indicating a slight contraction, while investment remained sluggish and overcapacity stayed at its historical high.
Described as the first of its kind, the large-scale, micro-level quarterly company survey, authored by CKGSB Professor of Finance Gan Jie, is based on stratified random sampling by industry, region and size from China’s National Bureau of Statistics’ company database, with around 2,000 firms responding to her survey each quarter. With much official data widely questioned, her results shed light on how the industrial sector is truly coping and what types of reforms are needed.
