Most Chinese entrepreneurs are cautiously optimistic about China's future economic trend, and almost half of them believe the country's economy would revive before the end of this year, a recent survey shows.

The survey, released by the Chinese Entrepreneur Survey System (CESS) under the Development Research Center of the State Council, found that 47 percent of the surveyed entrepreneurs thought China would see economic recovery by 2009, and 43.1 percent of them thought it would be next year.

According to the survey, entrepreneurs are not satisfied with the macro-economic condition in the first quarter, 41 percent of the them regard the economic condition in the first quarter as "poor"or "very poor", and 41.6 percent tend to think of the economy as "ordinary".

However, entrepreneurs showed confidence to the future development of their business, 48.6 percent of them expect to gain profits in the next quarter, though only 41.6 percent managed to make profits in the first quarter. The figure is 21.3 percentage points lower than a year earlier.

The survey also shows 15.6 percent of the entrepreneurs believe employment would "increase" in the next three months. Meanwhile, 30.2 percent of the entrepreneurs said their enterprises saw employment fall in the first quarter.

The survey, based on over 1,600 valid questionnaires, was carried out between March and early April and covered entrepreneurs from enterprises of various scales, regions and industries, according to CESS.

(Xinhua News Agency April 12, 2009)