Punt for cooked food stall at Taman Jurong breaks previous record of $21 a month.
Singapore, January 8, 2013
A new record has been set for the lowest rent for a cooked food hawker stall in Singapore - just $20 a month. The lucky hawker will be selling food at the
Taman Jurong Market and Food Centre in Jurong, according to the latest hawker stall auction results by the National Environment Agency (NEA).
Those bidding for a space at a food centre used to have to pay a minimum price set by the NEA. This was scrapped - and now applicants can take a punt
on renting a stall for possibly even just a few dollars. The previous record for a cooked food stall was $21 a month, also at the Taman Jurong food centre.
The low rents are the result of changes in the bidding process, introduced by the NEA in April last year to curb rising stall rents. Lower overheads give
hawkers more leeway to offer cheaper dishes. The agency has also altered rules so that if a stall gets only one bid in an auction one month and the same
happens at the next month's tender, it will be rented out. Previously, stalls had to receive at least two bids to be awarded. Analysts said lower rents give
hawkers the option to offer cheaper food prices, but not all may do so. Executive director of the Social Enterprise Association, Ms Teo Mee Hong, part of a
panel appointed by the Government in late 2011 to look into hawker centre operations, has said that hawkers who pay less rent could choose to lower
prices or increase their profit margins. Citigroup economist Kit Wei Zheng added that although rent makes up a large chunk of stallholders' costs, they still
face high raw material costs and labour costs. Since the new rules took effect, the NEA has rented out four cooked food and noodle stalls at $50 a month or less.
Usually it costs anywhere between a few hundred and several thousand dollars to lease such an outlet. The agency also rented out another 28 stalls in
the same period at under $100 a month, but these mostly sell fresh seafood or frozen goods, and not cooked food. In all, the low-rent stalls made up
about one in eight of 249 stalls rented out since last April. They are spread across market and food centres in Ang Mo Kio, Toa Payoh, Serangoon, Chinatown and other areas.
