SHANGHAI, July 19 (Xinhuanet) -- China's top commercial center continues to implement administrative reforms focusing on transparency, as the municipal government strives to become more effective and more responsive to the public.

    The public seems to approve. As the first step in its "transparency project," Shanghai introduced a spokesperson system last June, the first among the provincial-level governments in the country.

    Twenty-nine regular press conferences have been held since then, with government spokespersons and invited government officials releasing more than 70 pieces of major information ranging from key personnel appointments to economic and social matters related to daily life in the city.

    The press conferences are extremely popular among residents, with newspaper sales soaring on days immediately each one.

    Audiences of local radios that broadcast the conferences live also have also increased, as has related internet traffic. The number of people visiting the news column of the Eastday website, www.eastday.com, a premier online source of Shanghai news, rocketsby 160,000, or 20 percent, on days press conferences are held.

    The news media regard the conferences in Shanghai as "a rich mine" as information disclosed there is both timely and authoritative.

    During each event, the spokespersons would take questions fromnews reporters home and abroad for at least half an hour, and theyrarely said "no comment" on even very sensitive issues.

    Preliminary figures showed that over the past year, some 300 English news reports on the events have been filed by Western media, and more than 30,000 reports by Chinese media, including those from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan.

    The spokesperson system, though, is only one aspect of the "transparency project." On May 1 this year, Shanghai again took the lead among Chinese provincial-level governments by implementing regulations on information publicity.

    According to the regulations, all governmental information should be made public except that which concerns state secrets or related issues, and the municipal government is obliged to releaseinformation either on its own initiative or when asked by residentindividuals or organizations.

    The Shanghai municipal government has released information through various channels, including government communiques, newspapers and magazines, official websites, news conferences, radio and television broadcasting network, a public consulting office and government bulletins.

    A recent survey indicated that personnel appointment, real estate, social welfare and employment are issues that the general public is most concerned about. The government therefore asked the relevant departments to publicize related information first, an act that met with very positive response.

    Over the past two months, the number of people surfing government websites have averaged 400,000 per day -- a total of 25million.

    Information publicity has become an important part in the process of policy-making by the municipal government. For instance, it sometimes discloses information about a policy that is being drafted to see the public response before it is officially announced.

    "Through information publicity, we are striving to make our government effective, responsive and clean," said Han Zheng, Shanghai's mayor. Enditem