HKU POP SITE releases the results of people's most concerned problems, their satisfaction with the current political, economic and social conditions, as well as the HKSAR Anniversary Survey Back

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 findings of people's most concerned problems, their satisfaction with the current political, economic and social conditions, as well as the HKSAR Anniversary Survey. Since tomorrow will be the Handover Anniversary, and the results of the items mentioned are released for the last time before that, the half-yearly average figures for these questions carried in the POP Site can actually be regarded as a another wrap-up of the public sentiment since the establishment of the HKSAR in 1997.

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. According to this schedule, the date and time of our next release will be July 8, 2003, Tuesday, at 2 pm, the latest results of people's opinions towards the independence of Taiwan and cross-strait reunification, as well as their ethnic identity will be released.

Between June 13 and 18, 2003, POP conducted a random telephone survey which successfully interviewed 1,043 Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong of age 18 or above. Results showed that 72% of the respondents were most concerned with economic problems these days, 18% were most concerned with social problems, while 5% attached their greatest concern to political problems. These findings were fairly similar to those obtained in mid-March.

With respect to people's satisfaction with the current political condition, the latest findings indicated that 48% of the respondents were dissatisfied, 19% were satisfied, while 20% said "half-half". The dissatisfaction figure has surged by 14 percentage points from that of mid-March to reach a record high, whereas the satisfaction figure has declined by 9 percentage points.

Of the three main areas of concern, people continued to feel most dissatisfied with the economic condition. The latest results indicated that 82% of the respondents were dissatisfied, 4% were satisfied, while 12% said "half-half". These figures were more or less the same as those registered in mid-March.

With regard to the social condition, 46% of the respondents were dissatisfied, 26% were satisfied, while 27% said "half-half". No significant changes were observed for these figures when compared to those of mid-March.

As regards the HKSAR Anniversary Survey, 38% of the respondents were proud of becoming a national citizen of China after the handover, while 53% of them said they did not have any special feeling. Both figures were fairly similar to those registered last year. As for the policy of the Central Government on Hong Kong after the handover, 36% of the respondents evaluated it positively, representing a significant increase of 7 percentage points from that of last year. Besides, 24% gave negative evaluations, while 34% said "half-half".

Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, made the following analysis: "The most important finding for this survey is that people's dissatisfaction with Hong Kong's political condition has surged in the year past, from 22% last March to 48% now, overtaking that of people's dissatisfaction with current social condition. Although people are still most concerned with economic problems, their prolonged dissatisfaction in the economic area has begun to turn into political demands. Regarding the effect of the handover, other than people feeling more and more positively about the Central Government, other indicators have become settled in the past year or two."

The new poll released 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 1,043 respondents. At 95% confidence level, the sampling error of all percentages is less than plus/minus 3 percentage points. The meaning of "95% confidence level" is that 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 further comment on the findings. Shall any person or journalist have any other questions, please email them to us at <[email protected]>. The Director of Public Opinion Programme would answer them as soon as possible. We will keep such an arrangement under constant review, suggestions most welcome. Please note that everything carried in the POP Site does not represent the stand of the University of Hong Kong. Dr Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, is responsible for everything posted herewith, except for column articles which represent the stand of their authors.