The survey by Westpac and Charles Sturt Unviersity aims to provide a snapshot of business confidence, conditions and performance.

As part of the survey, primary producers were interviewed, as well as businesses 'upstream' in the process like input suppliers, and 'downstream' in the process like related transport, manufacturing, wholesale and retail businesses.

Westpac regional manager, Larry Hunter, said the North West had returned a economic performance indicator result of 0.00 for the quarter, compared with a national result of +0.04 and a Queensland average of +0.02.

"This compares to +0.05 in the September quarter last year and -0.03 for the same quarter a year ago for the North West district," he said.

"Upstream and downstream agribusinesses along the supply chain are generally performing more strongly than the primary producer sector.

"Agribusinesses in the North West district reported their input costs such as for raw materials, fuel, freight, feed, fertiliser, wages and utilities decreased this quarter."

The survey also reported 94 per cent of agribusinesses surveyed in the North West district were aware a carbon trading system may be introduced in the future, up from 73 per cent when the same question was asked in July 2007.

This compares to 96 per cent for Queensland and 95 per cent across Australia.

It was unclear whether the effect of last year's record floods in the Gulf region had an effect on the result of the survey.