The press conference to be given by Premier Wen Jiabao on Tuesday has once again become the focus of many people. Since the beginning of the two Conferences, many key Chinese websites have set up special forums collecting suggestions from netizens, the questions for Premier Wen Jiabao in particular.

At the press conference last year, Premier Wen noted, "Netizens know that I am going to give a press conference today, to my surprise, they put forward several hundred questions. I am touched by their concern with the state affairs. Many of their constructive suggestions and ideas are worth our consideration."

Wen's attention to netizens gave further impetus to them in participating and discussing state affairs. Thousands of netizens put forward questions for Premier Wen via People.com, Xinhuanet and CCTV.com, and they expected their voices to be heard.

Why do netizens pay so much attention to Premier Wen's press conference?

A netizen self-named Wang Junwen said that the Premier's easy-going style makes netizens feel warm; secondly, Premier Wen often tries to find out the aspirations of the people through various channels, including Internet; thirdly, Premier Wen wins trust from the people.

Many netizens expressed their passion for Premier Wen and their trust of the government in the online message board. They put forward questions attentively, and pass their grass-root proposals to high-level officials. The masses find a place to voice their suggestions and the Premier can hear their suggestions.

"Some problems we are facing are critical and complicated and netizens hope Premier's attention can give them confidence and strength. Problems affecting people's immediate interests such as medical care, housing, education as well as social security are accumulated little by little for decades, which require long time and huge efforts to solve. However, we firmly believe that our government is frank, sincere, responsible and capable of solving these problems", added Wang.

Some people regard the forum as online "NPC conference" and those who leave messages there "NPC deputies". They put up suggestions for China's future development via Internet.

The Internet makes people's voice heard more easily. By regarding netizens' suggestion and opinions as the call from our society, leaders have now paid more and more attention to what netizens said and consider it as an important channel to understand what the ordinary people are thinking and wanting.

Currently, government ministers begin to attend forum and exchange ideas with netizens. The voices from netizens have become an aspect that cannot be ignored when the government makes decisions.

By People's Daily Online