The bi-monthly survey, conducted on May 14-18, showed that the number of people who were confident that Hong Kong would continue to be prosperous and stable had gone up from 55 percent in March 2001 to 57 percent in May.

The percentage of respondents who were satisfied or very satisfied with the performance of the government has increased by one percentage point to 34 percent, according to the HAB when releasing the results of the survey Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the percentage of respondents who found the civil service efficient or very efficient has also gone up from 35 percent to 37 percent in May.

"We are glad to note the continued improvement in public satisfaction with the performance of the government and the efficiency of the civil service. We will continue to strive hard to improve the public perception in this regard," an HAB spokesman said.

The survey showed that economy-related issues has overtaken labor-related problems to become the most mentioned problem in May, with 47 percent of the respondents mentioning the problem, as compared to 42 percent in March.

Labor-related issues, which was the most mentioned problem in the past year, ranked second in the May survey, with 42 percent of the respondents mentioning them, down from 49 percent in March.

Education-related problems ranked third as the most mentioned problems in the latest survey, taking the place of housing-related problems, with 21 percent of respondents mentioning them, up from 18 percent in March.

Housing-related problems, on the other hand, were mentioned by 16 percent of the respondents, down from 20 percent in the March survey.

The survey was the 94th in the series. It had successfully interviewed 1,526 respondents, aged 15 to 64 who were chosen by random through the residential telephone directories.

(China Daily 05/30/2001)