HKU POP SITE releases latest trust and confidence indicatorsBack

The Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong interviewed 1,012 Hong Kong people between 16 and 21 June by means of a random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers. Our survey finds that compared to two months ago, people's trust in the local government has surged 15 percentage points, back to the level registered one year ago. Their trust in the central government, however, has dropped significantly. The net trust level (meaning trust minus distrust figures) of the local and central governments now stand at positive 44 and 34 percentage points respectively, while that of the Taiwan government stands at negative 11 percentage points. As for people's confidence in the future, the three indicators have gone up and down but all of them have stayed high. Net confidence (meaning positive minus negative figures) of people's confidence in the future of Hong Kong, China and 'one country, two systems' now stand at positive 49, 79 and 51 percentage points respectively. The sampling error of all percentages is between +/-2 to 3 percentage points at 95% confidence level, while the response rate of the survey is 69%.

Points to note:
* The address of the "HKU POP SITE" is http://hkupop.pori.hk, journalists can check out the details of the survey there.
* The sample size of this survey is 1,012 successful interviews, not 1,012 x 69.0% response rate. In the past, many media made this mistake.
* The maximum sampling error of all percentages is below +/-2 to 3 percentage points at 95% confidence level. "95% confidence level" means 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. When quoting these figures, journalists can state "sampling error of percentages not more than +/-3% at 95% confidence level".
* When quoting percentages of this survey, journalists should refrain from reporting decimal places in order to match the precision level of the figures.
* The data of this survey is collected by means of random telephone interviews conducted by real interviewers, not by any interactive voice system (IVS). If a research organization uses "computerized random telephone survey" to camouflage its IVS operation, it should be considered unprofessional.

POP today releases on schedule via the POP Site the latest findings on people's trust in the HKSAR, Beijing Central and Taiwan Governments, their confidence in Hong Kong's future, China's future and "one country, two systems". As a general practice, all figures have been weighted according to provisional figures obtained from the Census and Statistics Department regarding the gender-age distribution of the Hong Kong population in 2008 year-end. Herewith the contact information for the latest survey:

Recent popularity figures of SAR, Central and Taiwan Governments, and people's confidence in the future are summarized below:

Survey conducted in second half of June revealed that 58% of the respondents trusted the HKSAR Government, 51% trusted the Beijing Central Government, and 18% trusted the Taiwan Government. On the other hand, 72% of the respondents had confidence in Hong Kong's future and 87% had confidence in China's future, while 72% of the respondents were confident in "one country, two systems".

In January 2007, POP opened a feature page called "Opinion Daily" at the "POP Site", to record significant events and selected polling figures on a day-to-day basis, in order to let readers judge by themselves the reasons for the ups and downs of different opinion figures. In July 2007, POP collaborated with Wisers Information Limited whereby Wisers supplies to POP each day starting from July 24, a record of significant events of that day, according to the research method designed by POP. These daily entries would be uploaded to "Opinion Daily" as soon as they are verified by POP.

For the polling items covered in this press release, the previous survey was conducted from April 21 to 23, 2009 while this survey was conducted from June 16-21, 2009. In between these two surveys, herewith the significant events selected from counting newspaper headlines and commentaries on a daily basis and covered by at least 25% of the local newspaper articles. Readers can make their own judgment if these significant events have any impacts to different polling figures.

Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, observed, "Compared to two months ago, people's trust in the local government has surged 15 percentage points, back to the level registered one year ago. Their trust in the central government, however, has dropped significantly. The net trust level (meaning trust minus distrust figures) of the local and central governments now stand at positive 44 and 34 percentage points respectively, while that of the Taiwan government stands at negative 11 percentage points. As for people's confidence in the future, the three indicators have gone up and down but all of them have stayed high. Net confidence (meaning positive minus negative figures) of people's confidence in the future of Hong Kong, China and 'one country, two systems' now stand at positive 49, 79 and 51 percentage points respectively. As for the reasons affecting the ups and downs of these figures, readers are welcome to make their own judgment using the detailed records displayed in our 'Opinion Daily'."

• June 30, 2009 (Tuesday) 1pm to 2pm: HKSAR Anniversary Surveys
• July 2, 2009 (Thursday) 1pm to 2pm: Popularity of Legco members, the Police and the PLA Hong Kong Garrison