China Focus: Income, corruption top concerns for two sessions: Polls

The public are most concerned that income distribution and countercorruption are discussed at the ongoing two sessions, online polls have shown.

The annual sessions of the top legislative and political advisory bodies are being closely followed by the public, as issues relating to their quality of life are expected to be on the agenda.

Ahead of the conferences, major news portals conducted surveys on the public's "most concerning issues". One online poll by Xinhua attracted over 220,000 participants and another on people.com.cn, which is run by the People's Daily, saw 3.73 million respondents.

Income distribution was identified as the issue of most concern, attracting some 15,400 votes on xinhuanet.com and 530,000 votes on people.com.cn.

Income inequality is a hot topic among residents of the world second largest economy.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), China has its Gini index drop for six consecutive years to 0.469 in 2014. However, it remains above the international warning line of 0.4, which suggests a comparatively large income gap.

Shi Xuehua, professor at Beijing Normal University, said the issue relates to different areas including employment, social security, and pension system, and impedes reform efforts.

However, he noted, the new leadership of China was activity focusing on officialdom and income distribution.

Countercorruption was the second most concerning issue, a topic that has remained in the top three issues on Xinhua survey for ten years.

One respondent to the xinhuanet.com survey, Lingboweibu, posted that further attention should be given to countercorruption efforts at the grassroots level.

Vice president of Wuhan University in Hubei Province, Zhou Yezhong, said the government's zero-tolerance approach, adopted at the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in November 2012, had seen success but there was still more to be done.

In the people.com.cn survey, a newcomer to the survey the "economic new normal", ranked third. Nearly 80 percent of the participants answered optimistic or cautiously optimistic in response to the question "how do you view the GDP slowdown".

Ren Xiaoyong, manager of a construction material company in Jiangsu Province, said that the previous break-neck growth had sometimes been maintained at the expense of the environment, and the new normal should be seen as a positive.

He said: "My profits have been squeezed by the rising costs of labor and land. Hopefully, the government will further lower financing costs and help companies explore new technology to ensure we can thrive under the new normal."

In comparison, in previous years respondents had paid more attention to housing issues. On both surveys, the topic brought up the rear of the 10 most concerning issues.

Liu Guihua, a resident of Wuhan, capital of Hubei, said that after 57 years of living in substandard housing, her family had finally moved to a newly built affordable house last year.

She said the government had invested heavily in the construction of affordable, public housing in recent years, which had helped many low-income families.

"What I care about most is health care and pensions. I hope that support for retirees and low-income families is given attention," she said.

Health care and pensions ranked third and fourth on Xinhua's list.

A respondent to the people.com.cn survey, Yuemingzhaorenxin said: "Pensions for enterprise employees should be the same as those employed by public institutions to achieve social equality."

Another respondent, Qianqinhan, wrote on xinhuanet.com that hopefully more doctors and medical supplies will be sent to the countryside, so that the rural population have better access to quality medical treatment. Enditem