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City’s largest electronic market to close shop next year
Local authorities in Ho Chi Minh City’s District 10 Wednesday announced the decision to close the city’s biggest wholesale electronic market by early next year.
Nhat Tao Electronic Market and related stalls and shops in the area will have to stop operating by January 25, 2009, according to the decision.
The clearance of the 20-year-old market is part of a new zoning plan for the neighborhood, as the deteriorated structure failed to meet safety and environmental requirements, an official from District 10 People’s Committee said.
Committee Vice Chairwoman Le Ngoc Dao said all traders at the market have been informed of the decision on Tuesday and the process is under way to end all relevant business activities on time.
“Nhat Tao Market will be closed without a resettlement program,” she said. “We will implement some policies to support registered traders, but won’t offer any options for unregistered stalls.”
District authorities said they would move 225 registered stalls to a nearby building to “save” the market.
Small traders will be relocated to Block A in the nearby Nguyen Kim apartment complex. The area will be named Nhat Tao Electronic Trading Center, with 169 stalls occupying two stories of the 12-story building.
Authorities said they will offer favorable rental prices at the new location ranging from VND265,000 to VND365,000 (US$16-22) per square meter per month, depending on the location of the stalls. Rental space will be supplied starting on October 8.
Nhat Tao market was formed spontaneously in 1987 at an area next to Nguyen Kim Apartment in District 10’s Ward 7. Two years later, the People’s Committee of Ward 7 built a two-story cultural house at the site, which was later agglomerated into the market when authorities built stalls inside the structure and leased them out to small traders.
A total of 158 small traders have been doing business in the market’s 225 stalls up until the present time. But hundreds of stalls and shops have developed spontaneously in the surrounding vicinity since the 1990s, on the neighboring streets of Ly Nam De, Ly Thuong Kiet, Tan Phuoc and Nguyen Kim.
The People’s Committee of Ward 7 said there were around 400 stalls and shops with more than 2,000 laborers in the market area.
Thanhnien
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