This is a step in the right direction to curb inflation on food. The
removal of minimum bids for hawker stalls in April.
Should have been done earlier..
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stori...200871/1/.html
Dr Balakrishnan wants hawking to be "attractive and honourable"
By Monica Kotwani | Posted: 12 May 2012 2056 hrs
SINGAPORE: Minister for Environment and Water Resources Vivian Balakrishnan said he hoped to see more Singaporeans pursue the hawking profession in the future.
Speaking on the sidelines of the opening of a child care centre on Saturday, Dr Balakrishnan said with more centres opening in the near future, the next step will be to encourage people to view hawking more favourably.
"To make sure that there are enough Singaporeans who want to go into this business ... I have to make sure that we send the message that there will be places available, there will be reasonable rentals," he said.
With the announcement of 10 new hawker centres to be built over the next 10 years, and the removal of minimum bids for stalls in April, rental prices of hawker stalls have dropped.
"All these factors mean that rentals are going to fall, and I'm quite happy for that to happen, because our key objective is to provide good and affordable food for Singaporeans out in the heartlands," Dr Balakrishnan said.
"We're also looking at the proposal that there should be some form of training and opportunities to upgrade skills ... We will even look into proposals like having some form of central purchasing in order to get better prices through bulk purchases."
"There are many areas we can work on to uplift our hawking profession, and I think in the years ahead, I want to make it an attractive and honourable profession for Singaporeans to move into, and especially for younger Singaporeans," he added.
A social enterprise or cooperative to run the Bukit Panjang hawker centre, the first of the 10 new hawker centres to be built, will also be announced by the end of June.
The move to allow not-for-profit organisations to run hawker centres is part of a series of recommendations submitted by a consultation panel in March, following four months of deliberations and public consultation.
The Environment and Water Resources Ministry is also looking at having a single agency to manage the cleaning services for hawker centres, as suggested by the consultation panel.
Dr Balakrishnan said the objective of such a measure would elevate standards of hygiene, achieve economies of scale and improve mechanisation and training in systems.
"We hope we can get both higher standards as well as cost-effectiveness," he explained.
"But having said that, I also want to caution that over the next few years, I do want to see the wages of cleaners go up, and I want to see them go up significantly."
"It's only fair that all of us be prepared if need be, to pay a little bit more to ensure that the wages of cleaners go up significantly. That's another area I'm paying attention to," Dr Balakrishnan said.
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Originally Posted by carbuncle
