Survey shows Beijingers more ambitious in 2004

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, January 27, 2004

Survey shows Beijingers more ambitious in 2004

An increasing number of residents in Beijing, China's capital, have more ambitious expectations in the Year of the Monkey.

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An increasing number of residents in Beijing, China's capital, have more ambitious expectations in the Year of the Monkey.

The Beijing Youth Daily Monday published a survey on Beijing residents' expectations for 2004. The most expensive new year plan was to buy a house/apartment, one out of every four, or 26.3 percent of the people polled said. Another 23.2 percent of the surveyed said they would like to buy a car.

The newspaper said that the survey was done among 353 Beijing dwellers aging between 16 and 60. The gender ration is 1:1.

More than two thirds, or 68.4 percent of the surveyed wished more affordable housings would be available for wage earners.

An expectation that might be the most difficult to come true is to win the top lottery, said the report. One third of the people surveyed expressed the good wish.

To have salary increases is the most common wish, said the newspaper. More than half, or 54.3 percent of the people polled hoped they could have more increases in salary in the new year.

It seems that this is not a hard-to-reach goal. According to the National Statistics Bureau, Chinese urban dwellers earned 9.3 percent more in 2003 than they did in the previous year.

The daily cited "having three kinds of social insurance" as themost far-sighted wish. The survey shows that 49.5 percent of the people polled said that they hope to have pension, medicare and unemployment insurance.

In 2003 cereal and edible oil prices increased by 10 to 20 percent for the first time over the past six years. The survey shows that 37.9 percent of the people polled hope the prices woulddrop in 2004 while another 22.1 percent hoped the prices no longerincrease.

The most popular wish goes to family cars, though people have complained a lot about the increasingly worsening traffic jam in Beijing as its automobiles accounted for more than two million last year. Nearly half, or 46.3 percent of the people sampled hoped to see more cars priced less than 100,000 yuan (12,048 US dollars).

Source: Xinhua

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