Having finished her National Day shift, Jiang Guilan, who works at a neighborhood committee in Changping District of Beijing, arrived early at the Tian'anmen Square to enjoy the flower decoration.

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

Talking about the congress which would design a blueprint for China's further development, 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 a 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," Jiang said.

Food prices in supermarkets are surging too much, so she has to buy cheap vegetables from stall-keepers along the streets, Jiang said. "The quality there is surely not as good as that in supermarkets, but I have no other choice."

Jiang hoped that the government could draw out policies to adjust food prices and put them effectively into practice.

"My concerns might be personal and trivial, but I think that's exactly what affects the daily life of ordinary people like me," she added.

Statistics show that food prices climbed 18.2 percent year-on-year in August with the price of pork, the country's staple meat, nearly doubled in the past eight months due largely to tightened supply and increasing production cost.

While soaring prices remain a widely concerned issue for housekeepers, young people have their own worries.

"Although I have a postgraduate 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 graduation from the Hong Kong Baptist University.

Liu said he and his friends all hoped that the Party would make more efforts to relieve the graduates' pressure in the job market.

At least 13 million new job opportunities need to be created annually in China's urban areas for laid-off workers, university graduates, demobilized servicemen and migrant workers, according to the Ministry of Labor and Social Security.

"My friends and I all know the Party congress from newspapers and television though we seldom discuss topics related to it," said Wei Yijia after enjoying a blockbuster in a cinema in Beijing's busy shopping area of Wangfujing, where no special decorations have been prepared to mark the Party congress held once every five years.

Wei, who works with a foreign-invested accounting firm in Beijing, says, "Actually the congress is very close to us because the policies discussed at the congress will have a direct impact on our everyday life, such as air quality and drinking water safety."

Problems concerning people's livelihood have been the focus of the Chinese government especially since Premier Wen Jiabao included them in his government work report at the national legislature which met in March this year.

While stories on the Party congress keep hitting the headlines of newspapers these days, Jia Xinrong, a newspaper dealer, who's been working in the capital for ten years but still hasn't got the permanent resident registration in the city, places hope on the congress that might bring about improvement in her conditions.

"Without a resident registration, my children cannot receive education and enjoy health insurance as other kids," said Jia. "All I care about is how the Party congress would benefit migrant workers and our families."

These people may see their concerns would touched at the coming Party congress, during which the Party Constitution will be amended to "reflect" "the scientific concept of development" and other major theoretical developments, according to a meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held earlier.

Stressing people-centered development, the concept of scientific development refers to coordinated development between urban and rural areas, among different regions, between economic and social development, between the development of man and nature, and between domestic development and opening up to the outside world.

(Xinhua News Agency October 14, 2007)