[an error occurred while processing the directive] 香港大學民意研究計劃 Public Opinion Programme, The University of Hong Kong

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Press Release on September 24, 2002
 

The Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong today releases on schedule via the "HKU POP SITE" (http://hkupop.pori.hk) the latest rating of CE Tung Chee-hwa, people's appraisal of the performance of the HKSAR Government and members of the Legislative Council in general, as well as the latest results on people's most concerned problems and their satisfaction with the current political, economic and social conditions. POP's normal practice is to release the results of our regular surveys every Tuesday at 2 pm via our POP Site, except during public holidays, each time with a forecast of the items to be released in the forthcoming week. We will review and adjust this operation regularly.

 

Because next Tuesday is a public holiday, the date of our next release will be postponed to October 8, 2002, Tuesday, at 2 pm. The latest ratings of the top ten political figures in Mainland China and Taiwan, as well as people's opinions towards the independence of Taiwan and cross-strait reunification will be released.

 

According to the latest figures released today, CE Tung Chee-hwa's rating registered in mid-September (September 12-17) was 48.5 marks, representing an increase of 0.8 mark when compared with that of early September, which was statistically insignificant. Regarding people's appraisal of the HKSAR Government, 50% of the respondents were dissatisfied with its performance, 16% were satisfied, 29% said "half-half", while 4% did not give a definite answer. The results were similar to those obtained in mid-August.

 

As regards people's appraisal of the members of the Legislative Council in general, 30% of the respondents were dissatisfied with their performance, 17% were satisfied, 29% said "half-half", while 23% did not give a definite answer. Compared with the figures registered in early July, the dissatisfaction figure has significantly increased by 10 percentage points, whereas a drop of 5 percentage points was noticed for the satisfaction figure.

 

As for people's most concerned problems, the latest findings showed that 73% of the respondents were most concerned with economic problems, another 19% were most concerned with social problems, while only 2% attached their greatest concern to political problems. These figures are more or less the same as those obtained in early June.

 

Regarding people's satisfaction with the current political condition, the latest results indicated that 30% of the respondents were satisfied, 28% were not, 23% said "half-half", while 20% did not give a definite answer. Compared to the findings obtained in early June, the satisfaction figure has increased by 4 percentage points, while the dissatisfaction figure has remained almost the same.

 

Of the three areas of concern, people continued to feel most dissatisfied with the economic condition. The latest results showed that 81% of the respondents were dissatisfied, 5% were satisfied, 10% said "half-half", while 4% did not give a definite answer. When compared with the figures registered in early June, the dissatisfaction figure has increased by 4 percentage points to its record high since the handover, whereas the satisfaction figure has dropped by 3 percentage points.

 

With regard to the social condition, 41% of the respondents were dissatisfied, 27% were satisfied, 28% said "half-half", while 5% did not give a definite answer. Compared to the results of early June, the satisfaction figure has dropped by 4 percentage points, whilst other figures remained more or less the same.

 

The new survey reported in the POP Site today is a random telephone survey conducted by interviewers, targeting at Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong of age 18 or above. The sample size of the survey is over 1,000 respondents. At 95% confidence level, the sampling error of people's rating of CE is plus/minus 1.4 marks, while that 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.