News Centre

A telephone survey was conducted from 16 December to 20 December 2019 by the Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong to study the popularity of the HKSAR Government.  A total of 708 respondents aged 18 or above were successfully interviewed, with a response rate of 38.4%.  The sampling error is estimated at plus or minus 3.68 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.

Major findings are summarised as follows:

Satisfaction with the HKSAR Government.  According to the survey, 10.6% of the 708 respondents expressed satisfaction towards the HKSAR Government, 69.6% said they were dissatisfied, and 19.4% answered ‘in-between’.  The corresponding figures for November 2019 were 10.0%, 70.4%, and 19.2%, respectively.  The statistical analysis shows that the results for December 2019 were not significantly different from those of November 2019.  Nevertheless, when comparing the figures with that from the same month last year (i.e. December 2018), it was found that the percentage of satisfaction in December 2019 (10.6%) was substantially lower than that of December 2018 (28.8%).  The difference in percentage distribution between December 2019 and December 2018 was statistically significant.

Rating of Chief Executive Carrie Lam.  The survey in December 2019 indicated that the performance rating of Chief Executive Carrie Lam (with a point scale ranging from 0 to 100, 50 as the passing mark) stood at 22.2 on average, slightly lower than the rating for November (22.4).  The statistical significance test (t-test) shows that the mean difference between the rating in December 2019 and the rating in November 2019 was statistically insignificant.  But, when comparing her current rating (22.2) with that of December 2018 (52.7), the mean difference of the two months was statistically significant.

Ratings of Three Secretaries. The ratings of the Chief Secretary for Administration (Mathew Cheung), Financial Secretary (Paul Chan) and Secretary for Justice (Teresa Cheng) in December 2019 were 28.7, 26.3 and 15.9 respectively.  The corresponding figures in November 2019 were 29.3, 26.1 and 16.9.  The comparison of the ratings of the three Secretaries between December 2019 and November 2019 shows that statistically significant differences were not found.  When their ratings in December 2019 were compared with the respective figures in December 2018, statistically significant differences were found for all of the three Secretaries.

Trust in the HKSAR Government.  As of December 2019, 14.8% of the respondents showed trust in the HKSAR Government and 59.0% expressed distrust; 24.7% answered ‘in-between’.  The results in November 2019 were 15.1%, 59.4%, and 24.3%, respectively.  There was no statistically significant difference being found in trust in the HKSAR Government between December 2019 and November 2019.  However, when comparing the figure in the current survey with those of December 2018, the statistically significant difference between the percentages in December 2019 (Trust: 14.8%; Distrust: 59.0%) and the percentages in December 2018 (Trust: 30.6%; Distrust: 25.7%) was observed.

Trust in the Central Government.  Regarding the level of trust in the Central Government in December 2019, 13.7% said they trusted it, 58.4% answered the opposite, and 23.1% said ‘in-between’.  The respective figures from November were 14.0%, 59.2%, and 23.1%.  No statistically significant difference was found between December 2019 and November 2019.  But the difference between the percentages in December 2019 (Trust: 13.7%; Distrust: 58.4%) and the percentages in December 2018 (Trust: 22.8%; Distrust: 40.9%) was found to be statistically significant.