The CKGSB Business Sentiment Index Chart
Lending attitude diffusion index of banking sector
DI Raw material cost change
DI Labor cost change
DI Index of price
DI Current operating conditions
DI Unit cost change
DI Over-supply in foreign market
DI Over-supply in domestic market
DI Electricity consumption
DI inventory
DI Employment
DI Production
DI Investment timing
DI Expected operating conditions
BSI
About the CKGSB Business Sentiment Index
CKGSB’s Research Department on Finance and Economic Growth surveys more than 2,000 Chinese companies from within the industrial sector every quarter to provide the most comprehensive set of independent data currently available. Led by CKGSB Professors of Finance Gan Jie and Erica Xuenan Li, this large-scale, micro-level quarterly company survey on China’s industrial economy, which began in 2014 Q2, sheds light on how the sector is coping and what types of reforms are needed—based not on opinion, but on a painstaking, fact-gathering process.
Described as the first of its kind, this survey is based on stratified random sampling by industry, region and size from the National Bureau of Statistics’ population of 488,000 industrial firms that have sales of over five million RMB. The survey has around 2,000 responding firms each time.
Each quarter, the professors reveal their survey findings, which are often surprising, given the usual themes found in the media today. They then outline some policy recommendations which are necessary to deal with the problems exposed by the survey’s data.
Latest survey results
In the second quarter of 2026, Chinese companies recalibrated their pace of development after a period of intense external shocks.
In the first quarter, external tensions drove up energy and raw-material prices, sending the cost curve sharply higher. At the same time, China’s domestic prices began to recover: PPI returned to positive territory and CPI edged upward moderately. Companies finally saw a long-awaited window for passing higher costs through to prices.
By the second quarter, the international market was still experiencing aftershocks, and cost pressures remained elevated, but companies had absorbed the most severe part of the shock. Production lines began heating up again.
The Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business (CKGSB) Business Sentiment Index (BSI) shows that the Business Sentiment Index stood at 53 in Q2 2026, down 1 point from the previous quarter but still above the expansion-contraction threshold (50). The Operating Conditions Index was 62, down 1 point from Q1, while the Expected Operating Conditions Index was 50, exactly at the expansion-contraction threshold (50). The Investment Timing Index remained at 48.
For more information, or to arrange an interview with the professors, please email Xuefang Tian (Julie) at xftian@ckgsb.edu.cn.
