BEIJING - Chinese officials have greatly increased their use of micro blogs to become more familiar with netizens' opinions, according to a survey by people.com.cn, an online news portal run by the People's Daily.

By August 1, more than 10,000 government departments and officials across China had opened micro-blog accounts, with 266 of them being used by senior officials ranked at deputy-city level or above, according to the survey.

The survey was based on the micro-blog services provided by Shenzhen-based Tencent, one of the leading counterparts of Twitter in China.