Hawkers And Storeholders

Singapore time 7.50 am 20th May 2007

Hawkers and storeholders work long hours but only some make good money. They have no holidays, working 7 days a week. For some storeholders or shopkeepers they rest on Sundays if they make money on other days. For most hawkers, they keep working for 7 days a week and their holidays are only during Chinese New Year, when they can rest for 1 week for 3 weeks.

Old hawkers and storeholders or shopkeepers find it hard to get their children to take over them. Their children don't like the long hours of working and most prefer to work in aircon environment. Their fathers' shops or stores are mostly non aircon.

With more shopping centres coming up in neighbourhood centres, these storeholders or shopkeepers are threatened with competition from the new big shopping centres which cater to more variety of merchandice and their prices can sometime be cheaper than the storeholders. They buy in bulk, so their cost can be cheaper.

I give an example. NTUC expanded the Fairprice supermarket in Ang Mo Kio centre into a bigger store. Other shops in the Ang Mo Kio centre will be threatened. Is this the way of the NTUC Fairprice to kill the livelihood of Singaporeans shopkeepers or storeholders ?

Like in my are, the HDB built a mini shopping comples for shops. These compete with other shops in the area and I see many shop are still vacant because the shopkeepers cannot make money so they have to close shop. There is a supermarket so the storeholders in the wet market are affected. Right now they are reconstructing a new wet market and I want to see how the storeholders can survive with so many shops. A vacant plot nearby if allowed to build to have a few more blocks of flats, the extra shops in the area should be able to survive.

These hawkers and storeholders are a dieing bread. The new generation hawkers are different. Some even have university degree. They go upmarket product so competition is less.

Hawkers are suppose to hawk their food, but some employ many workers, so they should be classified as food storeholders rather than hawkers. I advice the Health ministry to reconsider issuing hawker license to these food storeholders who can drive big cars and live in private properties. A few of the Newton Food Centre storeholders are in this category.

My suggestion is that HDB should plan carefully the building of flats and shops in the neighbourhood towns. The concept of new towns is so inconvenient for residents away from the neighbourhood centre. Just go to Sengkang and Ponggul and see for yourself.