Public wants more channels to speak out

SHANGHAI - City residents are looking for more opportunities and channels to express their concerns to deputies and members to the annual sessions of the country's top legislature and top political advisory body, according to the Media and Public Opinion Research Center at Fudan University.

The research center said its fifth citywide survey is moving forward at the same time as the two-week sessions of the National People's Congress (NPC) and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).

"We have conducted such polls for four years running, trying to find out what the public understands and thinks about the two most important meetings in the domestic political calendar," Zhou Baohua, an assistant to the director of the research center said on Friday. He said the public's awareness of the two sessions keeps growing and that 93 percent of the respondents to the 2010 survey said they knew of the meetings.