The HKU Public Opinion Programme (POP) today releases its latest survey findings via its POP SITEBack

The Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong today releases as scheduled via its website the "HKU POP SITE" (http://hkupop.pori.hk) the latest survey figures on Hong Kong people's trust of the HKSAR and Beijing Central Governments, people's confidence in the future of China, Hong Kong, and "one country, two systems". The half-yearly figures released have already covered the whole year of 2001. The date of its next release will be January 22, 2001, Tuesday, at 2 pm. The result of its latest surveys on CE's rating, people's satisfaction with the HKSAR Government and legislative councillors, and four social indicators on Hong Kong's degree of democracy, freedom, prosperity, and stability respectively will be released.

According to the latest figures released today, compared to the figures registered in October 2001, Hong Kong people's trust in the HKSAR in December has slightly increased, to 44%. Their trust in the Beijing Central Government has, however, surged to a historical high of 52%. People's confidence in the future of Hong Kong is on an upward trend, but the latest increment was not significant. The latest figure is 53%. People's confidence in the future of China has remained stable, at 83%. People's confidence in the "one country, two systems" has, however, dropped marginally to 59%.

All new surveys reported in the POP Site today are random telephone surveys conducted by interviewers, targeting at Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong of age 18 or above. The sample size of all surveys is over 1,000 respondents. At 95% confidence level, the sampling error of all percentages is less than plus/minus 3 percentage points. That means if we were to repeat a certain survey 100 times, using the same questions each time but with different random samples, we would expect 95 times getting a figure within the error margins specified. Shall anyone have any question regarding the research design of the surveys published in the POP Site, members of the POP Team will be happy to answer them, but we will not comment on the findings at this stage. Such an arrangement would be reviewed when more resources are available. Please note that Dr CHUNG Ting-yiu Robert, Director of Public Opinion Programme, is solely responsible for the work published in the POP Site, which does not represent the stand of the University of Hong Kong.