AFFORDABLE housing and the social security system remain among Chinese people's top concerns, according to online polls prior to the country's annual parliamentary and political advisory sessions.
Many people posted their concerns online in the hope that their voices will be heard by the country's top leaders, national lawmakers and political advisors who will gather in Beijing next month.
From a list of 25 topics, "affordable housing" was the issue receiving most votes as of 11am on Saturday in a survey on Xinhuanet.com.
The topic earned some 5.92 percent of the 362,126 votes cast and was followed by concerns about inflation, jobs and incomes.
China has witnessed escalating housing prices over the last few years, and owning an affordable house has become a dream hard to realize for many citizens.
In online comments, hope was expressed that the government could accelerate the supply of affordable homes for low-income groups and tighten measures to rein in property prices.
"Affordable houses should never be used as a tool of profiteering for rich people," said one post, which added that the allocation of such houses should be exclusive to those requiring assistance.
China plans to build 10 million affordable apartments and houses for the country's poorest citizens this year.
The government also recently introduced tough measures to curb speculation and contain house prices.
On people.com.cn, a website subsidiary of the People's Daily newspaper, the topic of most concern was China's social security system.
Of 111,376 votes on more than a dozen topics, "social security" had gained 28,055 votes in the website's poll as of noon on Saturday.
The "dual pension scheme," where civil servants and employees at government-affiliated institutions enjoy pensions worth several times those in other enterprises, attracted many complaints,
Many people also hoped that the ratio of money reimbursement for those insured under the social security system could be further increased.
According to government officials, China aims to guarantee universal access to pensions for people in rural areas and further improve the pension system for city dwellers over the next five years
In the past five-year period pensions for retired enterprise employees increased.
China raised the retired enterprise employees' pension by about 10 percent from 2010 levels, from January 1.
Song Xiaowu, head of the China Society of Economic Reform, said there had long been an uneven allocation of social security resources.
"Namely, between the urban and rural areas, farmers and city workers, enterprise employees and government staff, ordinary workers and officials," he said.