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Netizens call for interactive govt websites

By Zhang Lei (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-12-19 07:46

A large number of the country's Internet users are not satisfied with government websites and want them to be more "interactive" and "helpful", according to an online survey.

The survey, jointly conducted by China Youth Daily and news portal Sina.com, received 1,110 responses.

Six out of every ten respondents said government portals were not satisfactory, while one-third of them felt the sites were "average", the survey, released on Tuesday, said.

Less than 7 percent of the respondents thought government websites were "satisfactory".

Calling for more interaction with officials through government websites, nearly one-third of the respondents thought there should be a "two-way exchange" and the public and policymakers should have more online direct chats.

Governments and ministries at various levels have their own websites, but most of them are used for posting notices and information, they said.

One-fifth of the respondents wanted government websites to improve efficiency, while 15 percent of them hoped for timely updates of information and warnings.

According to experts, the results of the survey hint that there is an urgent need to upgrade and improve government-run websites to cater to the growing Internet population.

China eclipsed the US to boast of the world's largest Internet population at the end of June.

A large number of the country's nearly 300 million Internet users, particularly those below the age of 30, depend on the net for information, shopping and visa applications.

"The establishment of a service-oriented e-government network becomes all the more important in a wired era," Zhao Shuguang, director of the Media Research Lab at Tsinghua University, said.

Gov.cn, the central government's website, gets four to five high-ranking officials online every month to chat directly with the public.

The direct public-government interaction got the website 138.7 million hits in the first three quarters of this year, Zhao told China Daily.

Websites of the ministries of health, agriculture and finance are visited often, the lab said.

The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security website has seen a big jump in the number of hits since October as the job-hunting season for graduates began, it said.