Housing, employment and education are the three hottest topics on the minds of general public, leading up to annual two sessions of China's legislature and a dvisory body from early to mid March, according to a survey released recently.

In the survey, interviewees were given dozens of choices as which topics they would like the annual sessions of the National People's Congress (NPC) and Chinese People's political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) to deliberate next month.

About 75.3 percent of them said that they cared most for "housing and property management", saying that rising housing prices was putting them under great pressure.

Unemployment was preferred by 61.7 percent of the interviewees, who urged the government to take into account creating job opportunities for laid-off workers and the handicapped as well as college graduates.

Arbitrary charges and corruption in the education sector were accused by 58 percent of interviewees calling for equal education opportunities for people, poor or rich.

High medical care expenses, an entrenched problem along the country's decades-long medical reform, has been slammed by 53 percent of the respondents.

Social justice closely followed. About 52.1 percent of the surveyed regard lacking social justice in market competition as the root cause for various problems like poor-rich disparity, judicial grievances, corruption, education, medical and rural problems.

Last year, Chinese public said they attended most to "widening income gap between the poor and rich and unfair income distribution", "real estate and housing", "employment and reemployment", "price fluctuation" and "Anti-Secession Law".

Other topics they hope the NPC and CPPCC will mull over include anti-corruption, public security, judicial justice, safeguarding public rights and interests, financial situation and stock market, building up a a country under the rule of law, national development program during 2006-2010.

Eighty-seven percent of the interviewed also take interest in how the government will resolve the problems, but only 4.9 percent agreed that they could be effectively tackled, while 69.9 percent held an undecided attitude and 25.2 said it was almost impossible.

When giving an evaluation to the annual sessions in the past few years, 7.8 percent of the respondents gave very positive comment, 65 percent said the sessions helped to some extent solve problems for the public.

The survey by the Social Survey Institution of China interviewed 2,000 people in 16 cities including major cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Xi'an.

Source: Xinhua