China's employer confidence index continued to tumble in the fourth quarter as more businesses worried about economic overheating, a survey released by the People's Bank of China (PBOC) on Thursday said.

The survey, conducted in the fourth quarter, covered 5,497 companies nationwide, the central bank stated.

The employer confidence index dropped 0.1 percentage points quarter-to-quarter to 76.9 percent. This followed a sharp decline of 6.4 percentage points in the third quarter.

Up to 21.6 percent of the employers surveyed believed the Chinese economy was on the brink of overheating. The reading, 0.5 percentage points higher from last quarter, was the highest in 14 years.

The survey also said 39.8 percent of the companies believed the price of production materials would continue to rise. The figure, 1.9 percentage points higher from last quarter, was the highest since 1997.

Nineteen percent said their product sales prices would rise. The gap showed more companies were cautious in transferring production costs to their customers.

The index on domestic orders rose by 1.4 percentage points quarter-to-quarter to 13 percent this quarter as retail sales continued to rise because of increasing personal income.

The index on overseas orders, however, fell by 0.8 percentage points quarter-to-quarter to 6.4 percent after retreating by 2.5 percentage points in the third quarter.

China's index of bankers' confidence rose to 24.1 percent in the fourth quarter from 21 percent last quarter, according to a survey of 2,850 bankers conducted by the central bank in the fourth quarter.

The survey stated that 81.3 percent of the bankers said the economy had shown signs of overheating. Nearly 70 percent thought the economy would continue to be on the verge of overheating in the first quarter of 2008.

China's gross domestic product expanded by 11.5 percent in the first three quarters of the year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

(Xinhua)