XN000022-1997-04-07 — Page 11

9

Majority satisfied with HK's present situation: HAB poll

The latest public opinion survey conducted by the Home Affairs Branch (HAB) in March has shown that 76 per cent of the respondents were satisfied with the present situation in Hong Kong.

This represented an increase of three percentage points as compared with the last survey conducted in January, an HAB spokesman said today (Monday).

Twenty-four per cent of the respondents expected the situation would improve in the next 12 months while 49 per cent believed it would stay about the same. This compared with 25 per cent and 45 per cent respectively in the last survey.

When asked if they thought Hong Kong would continue to be prosperous and stable, 73 per cent expressed confidence, the same as that in January.

On the overall performance of the Government, the number of respondents who expressed satisfaction increased from 48 per cent to 53 per cent while those holding the opposite view decreased from 28 per cent to 24 per cent.

Civil servants' working attitude struck 58 per cent as good while those who thought otherwise remained at 23 per cent.

Of the three most-mentioned problems facing Hong Kong, housing issues continued to top the list at 66 per cent while social welfare-related and labour-related problems were mentioned by an equal 25 per cent of respondents.

The number of interviewees who said the payments under the Comprehensive Social Security Assistance Scheme was too low has dropped from 11 per cent in last September to nine per cent.

The survey was the 69th in the series to gauge the trend of public opinion on perceived problems in Hong Kong, the Government's overall performance and the community's view of the general situation.

Through a random sampling of residential telephone numbers, 1526 respondents aged between 15 and 64 were successfully interviewed.

End