16 July 2003 12:00am

The latest quarterly survey of the business banking habits of companies in the corporate market and middle market from East & Partners and JP Morgan, published yesterday, reinforces the trends reported from the March 2003 survey, which are that:

• the borrowing intentions of the top 500 companies is weakening, which East and JP Morgan interpret as due to the pressure of an uncertain global economy and a strengthening Australian dollar.

• the borrowing intentions in the middle market that is, companies with turnover of between $10 million and $100...