BEIJING-- China's entrepreneurs appear to be less confident about their current business prospects, according to a quarterly survey by the People's Bank of China (PBOC), the country's central bank.

The Entrepreneur Confidence Index, a gauge of the views and opinions of the country's entrepreneurs, dropped 5.6 percentage points to 70.2 percent in the third quarter, according to the PBOC's survey.

The survey revealed a slight slip in foreign trade orders, with indices for domestic orders and overseas orders both on the decline. The domestic order and overseas order indices went down 1.4 percentage points and 0.9 percentage points from the second quarter, respectively, to rest 55.3 percent and 51.6 percent.

The survey also showed a 1.3-percent drop in the business climate index, a major measure of the country's macroeconomic outlook, to 69.3 percent.