CHINESE consumer confidence plunged in November due to the sharp fall in the stock market as well as uncurbed rises in consumer prices and home prices, said a report by Xinhua Finance Ltd and eziData yesterday.

The China Consumer Confidence Index compiled by the two companies fell 1.9 points in November to 98.9, the lowest level in the history of the survey, which started in April this year when the benchmark value was set at 100.

The survey was conducted through 1,547 telephone interviews from November 3 to November 19 by Xinhua Finance Ltd, a financial information and media service provider and the local China consumer data provider eziData.

The index plunge followed people's views of current conditions, which declined 3.1 points to 97.4. This in turn was led by a 7.3-point fall in current personal finances, due to losses in stock investments as well as concerns over soaring consumer prices.

The Shanghai Composite Index, which tracks yuan-denominated A shares and hard-currency B shares, dropped 1.21 percent to 4,803.39 points yesterday, compared with a record-high 6,124.04 points on October 16.

Negative factors

Consumer prices, a major tool to measure inflation, surged 6.5 percent last month from a year earlier, the highest since the seven-percent rise recorded in December 1996.

With no signs of easing negative factors, such as skyrocketing home prices and the appreciation of the yuan that may affect export competitiveness, consumer expectation fell by 1.2 points to 99.6, lower than in April.

The sharp fall in the stock market also broke consumers' expectations for future investment returns, causing a 2.9-point drop in the one-year outlook for personal finances.

"However, since the drop in consumer confidence this month is mainly due to the decline in the stock market - and since the market is still expected to improve in the longer run - we do not expect confidence to show a large fall in December," said the report.

In Shanghai, sentiment on current conditions reported a sharper drop of 2.6 points to 99.8 because of severer losses on the stock market, since there are more stock-holders in Shanghai than fund-holders, compared with Beijing and Guangzhou.