With more of us staying home during this period of tightened measures, stalls and hawkers with no online presence are seeing a dip in business.
While hawkers are receiving subsidies and support from the general public, market stalls are often overlooked.
On Thursday (10 Jun), Amy Khor, Minister of State for Sustainability and the Environment, announced rental waivers for these small businesses.
The subsidy will be equivalent to one month’s rent and will be offered to around 7,000 market stallholders.
On 10 Jun, Dr Khor took to Facebook to share about the plight of many stallholders who experienced lower footfall during Phase 2 Heightened Alert (P2HA).
Like earlier subsidies given to hawkers and F&B establishments, the initiative is meant to help tide smaller businesses through this period of tightened restrictions.
Stalls in markets managed by NEA or NEA-appointed operators are eligible for the waiver.
However, while hawkers will need to pay half of their rental fees, market stallholders will have an entire month of rental waived.
Dr Khor also implores self-employed persons, such as stallholders, to apply for a one-off $500 payment under the Temporary Recovery Grant.
She ends by reminding us to support one another, including our local stalls who provide us with our daily produce.
It’s important to not take local businesses around us for granted, especially during this period of tightened measures.
We’ve already seen closures of other big establishments at an alarming rate since the pandemic, so we can only imagine how difficult our market stallholders and hawkers are having it.
That’s especially the case since more people have shifted their shopping preferences online, including for their groceries and food.
Let’s make it a point to support our hawker, market stalls, and other small businesses so they too can survive past the pandemic.
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Featured image adapted from MS News.
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