“It’s the variety of food, some of which you’ll hardly find elsewhere,” said the 35-year-old, speaking to TODAY on Thursday afternoon at a pasar malam next to Punggol MRT Station in between bites of crispy-fried cuttlefish.
“But now, even though a pasar malam would appear near my place once in a while and I have to walk through it to get to work or go home, I rarely buy anything,” he said, attributing it to costliness.For decades, trade fairs such as festive bazaars and neighbourhood pasar malam — Malay for night market — have been a common sight in Singapore.
While these fairs have undergone some positive changes over the years, such as being generally cleaner and having better layouts, other developments are not so welcome. One issue that sticks out in particular, as highlighted by Mr Chia and Kishan, is the escalating prices of the pasar malam offerings.
As for pasar malam in the heartlands, a 20-day fair at Our Tampines Hub with 50 stalls had a tender value of S$171,000, according to publicly available information on the government procurement site Gebiz. “I think, if nothing is done, pasar malam might not be around anymore in three to four years’ time,” said Mr Fraze Tan Boon Leng, 35, a third-generation owner of Hock Kee Birds Nest drink stall, a family business that has been operating at night markets since the 1980s.
Ms May Oh, 62, the owner of the stall from which Ms Yati was buying from, has been plying the trade for the last 15 years, selling cheap household products ranging from kitchen knives to reading glasses, with most of her items selling for S$5 or less. “If I open a stall at pasar malam, I get to sell to different customers in different parts of Singapore. And because the stall is not permanent, some customers might feel the urge to buy more before we close,” said Mr Tan of Hock Kee Birds Nest Drink stall.
“Consumers, new to the brand, may be better converted with a physical experience to start them off, rather than encountering the brand only over an online platform.” Ms Oh, the houseware seller at Woodlands, told TODAY: “Last time selling things at pasar malam was enough. I could even raise two children and send them to school.
Mr Stephen Suriyah, second-generation owner of The Original Vadai chain, still opens stalls at Bazaar Geylang Serai every year, as that was where his family business started in the late 1980s.Raj Nadarajan/TODAY Rental rates for some stalls at pasar malam have easily doubled since about four to five years ago, according to vendors at various fairs who spoke to TODAY.
While generally accepted at neighbourhood night markets, consumers and some vendors found these game booths a little out of place at the Bazaar Geylang Serai during this festive season. “Even though there’s a crowd, they are buying a lot less items because each item now is more expensive. Which is why I try my best to sell my items cheaper and bank on volume of sale.”Worse still, some vendors at the Geylang Bazaar said they had seen some stallholders being evicted due to their inability to pay rent. Mr Mustaffa confirmed with TODAY that some evictions had occurred.
Replying to a parliamentary question on Friday , Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Edwin Tong, whose ministry oversees PA, said that trade fairs are organised through an open tender process to appoint a professional fair operator to manage and operate the event. Replying to a supplementary question by Mr Faisal, Mr Tong added that the point of the tender “is not to get the bidder with the highest price, but the bidder with the best expertise, the best proposal”.
These would include funding the Hari Raya Light-Up and programming to build a festive atmosphere to the 36-day bazaar, supporting collaboration between Wisma Geylang Serai and Malay-Muslim organisations, as well as providing community and social programme to assist low-income families and the elderly.
Other companies which had unsuccessfully bidded for the Geylang Serai bazaar project agreed with Mr Mustaffa, saying that their companies are smaller and would be less able to afford paying a large tender sum to PA. While he could not recall the evaluation criteria that year, he said that the fact that Orange was only the fourth-highest bidder at that time and was still able to win the tender shows that there was less emphasis on tender value on PA’s part so bidders could compete in other areas such as providing a good bazaar experience.
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