Chinanews, Shanghai, Aug 6 – Information from the National Statistics Bureau (NSB) shows that in last June, consumer confidence index reached 97.5 points, hitting a record high in past 18 months. Early in last July, related information released showed that the consumer confidence index for the second quarter of this year reached 96.8 points. The consumer confidence index in last July rose by 1.0 point compared with that of the first quarter and 2.8 points compared with the same period last year. This might indicate that the new round of price hikes has not affected consumer confidence index, the Shanghai Securities Journal reported.However, information from NSB's Shanghai Investigation Team shows that during the second quarter of this year, consumer confidence index, an index that reflects consumers' assessment of the current economic situation and economic prospect in the future, reached 109.3 points, 3.4 points lower than the previous quarter. This shows that consumers in Shanghai were optimistic about the overall economic development and prospect in Shanghai, although their confidence in the economy had declined a little bit.Since the beginning of this year, the price of consumption goods, especially the price of meat, has kept rising. This has affected consumers' optimism about their economic life in future. It is therefore within the expectation that consumer confidence index will fall, NSB's Shanghai Investigation Team said.Among the figures publicized, consumer confidence indexes for the life quality and durable goods declined the most, while consumer confidence indexes for employment situation, the overall economy, and family income declined the least. The investigation shows that in the second quarter, 82.1% of the respondents thought that current commodity prices were relatively high, 20.2 percentage points more than the first quarter. Among them, 21.1% thought commodity price was “intolerably high,” an increase of 10.5 percentage points. 63.9% of the respondents thought commodity price would continue to rise in future, an increase of 7.4 percentage points. This shows that at least in Shanghai, the price hikes of commodity goods have already caused a great negative effect on consumers’ confidence.