SEB’s China Financial Index indicates rising optimism
SEB's China Financial Index, which measures the business outlook among northern European companies' subsidiaries in China, rose to 55.8 in the autumn of last year from 54.9 in May. That indicates increasing optimism after the significant drop seen in the spring of 2022, which was connected to the Covid-19 lock down of Shanghai. As the autumn survey was conducted before China ended its zero-Covid strategy in December, sentiment is likely to continue to improve. After a decline in all sub-indexes in the spring survey, there was a mixed picture in the autumn survey. The profit outlook