(Yicai Global) Mar 16 -- Chinese bankers have registered the highest confidence in the world's second largest economy since 2006 although the proportion of those regarding the monetary policy as tight has increased, showed results of a survey released by the People's Bank of China, PBOC.

The macro-economy confidence index has risen for the ninth straight quarter, to 81.9 percent from 79.1 percent three months before, close to the historical peak in 2004, said the central bank's report on the survey of 3,200 bankers in the first quarter of this year yesterday.

Compared with the previous quarter, the bankers' macro-economy heat index rose by 2 percentage points to 43.2 percent, the survey results revealed. Some 80.7 percent of bankers regarded the current macro-economic condition as normal, up 3.8 percentage points from the previous quarter, while 16.5 percent of bankers described the economy as cooling down, representing a drop of 2.8 percentage points from the previous quarter.

Despite their high confidence in the economy, more bankers (23.7 percent) tend to call the current monetary policy tight, 4.6 percentage points higher than the figure in the previous quarter, while 73.2 percent of bankers regarded the monetary policy as moderate, down 5.4 percentage points from the previous quarter.

China will pursue prudent and neutral monetary policy this year, the country's top macro-economic planners announced, while enterprises and financial sector insiders are reported to have a more upbeat and positive outlook.