BEIJING, June 19 (Xinhua) -- China's business climate index dropped in the second quarter of this year as entrepreneurs felt worse about their business operations, according to a latest central bank survey.

The index, measuring businessmen's views of their firms' operations, fell 7 percentage points year on year to 63.7 percent, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) said Tuesday.

The figure was down 0.7 percentage points from the first quarter, the PBOC said in a statement, citing results of a survey conducted among more than 5,700 industrial enterprises.

Meanwhile, the index reflecting entrepreneurs' anticipation of future operations declined to 65.8 percent, down 2.7 percentage points from the previous quarter and 5.6 percentage points from a year earlier, the PBOC data showed.

China saw its economic growth slow to a near three-year low of 8.1 percent in the first quarter as sovereign debt woes in Europe pared export demand and government regulation on the property sector stemmed investment.

From January to April, profits of the industrial enterprises of scale -- referring to enterprises with annual sales revenue exceeding 5 million yuan each -- declined 1.6 percent from a year earlier, according to official figures.

The business profit index slumped 6.1 percentage points year on year to 52.6 percent, but it was 1.4 percentage points higher than that of the first quarter, the PBOC said.

However, the index gauging entrepreneurs' anticipation of future profits decreased by 1.4 percentage points from the first quarter and 3.6 percentage points from a year ago.