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Chinese look to Party meet to address concerns

BEIJING: Jiang Guilan, who works at a neighbourhood committee in Changping District of Beijing, arrived early at the Tiananmen Square to enjoy the flower decoration on Sunday.

Though the National Day holiday was over, the square in the centre of the Chinese capital is still decorated with 400,000 pots containing 130 different species of flowers, which are expected to be there during the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), due to begin on Monday. The Party Congress is held every five years.

Talking about the Congress, which would design a blueprint for further development, Ms. Jiang said her first concern is the price of food products. “For the past few months, I’ve kept going to the market to buy vegetables after I finish the day’s work at 5 p.m. because the prices are lower at that time though vegetables are not as fresh as in the morning”.

Food prices in supermarkets are surging, so she has to buy cheap vegetables from stall-keepers along the streets, Ms. Jiang said. “The quality there is surely not as good as that in supermarkets, but I have no other choice.” She hoped that the government would implement policies to check food prices.

“My concerns might be personal and trivial, but I think that’s exactly what affects the daily life of ordinary people like me,” she said.

Statistics show that food prices climbed 18.2 per cent year-on-year in August with the price of pork, the country’s staple meat, nearly doubling in the past eight months due largely to supply shortages and increasing production cost.

While soaring prices remain an issue of wide concern for housekeepers, young people have their own worries.

“Although I have a post-graduate degree, I’m perfectly aware that it is difficult to find a good job in the mainland,” said Liu Xin, who just came back for job-hunting in Beijing after graduating from the Hong Kong Baptist University.

Mr. Liu said he and his friends all hoped that the Party would make more efforts to relieve graduates’ difficulties in the job market. — Xinhua

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