Website's offline event welcomed by readers after top 10 policy choice

Members of the team working on the official website of the central government meet frequent visitors of the website in Beijing on Jan 13.[Photo by Wang Jing/China Daily]

In an effort to boost communication with citizens, the government's website held its first offline interactive event with readers in Beijing on Jan 13.

It invited 10 readers who were randomly selected out of the 117,000 who voted in the poll for "Netizens' Choices of the Top 10 State Council Policies in 2014" through the website's official microblog accounts on Sina.com and QQ.com.

The government website has a total of 37 million viewers following the accounts on various social media platforms.

The top policy, according to the votes cast, was for streamlining the procedures for approvals, followed by improving medical services and making household registration easier.

Tang Zhiwei, like the other 9 readers, felt excited and honored to have a chance to talk face-to-face with staff of the country's top administrative body, "and to let my voice as a grassroots rail worker be heard,'' he said.

Tang, an operator with Daozhou rail station in Hunan province, said he voted for the policies which were relevant to his daily life.

"The offline meeting, combined with the online survey, is an innovation in publicizing government information, and this signals progress," Tang added.

Wang Wei, owner of a startup company in Beijing, agreed and said the interactive approach is a major move forward.

Wu Dan, an undergraduate from Anyang Normal University in Henan province, shared her experience as a job hunter, and her concern for the employment policy which ranks 7 on the list.