COOKED FOOD HAWKER STALLS (Vacancy and allocation)

Dr Wang Kai Yuen asked the Minister for the Environment (a) how many hawker stalls for cooked food are vacant and where are these stalls, and (b) whether his Ministry will review the allocation of these hawker stalls which has been suspended for many years in view of the severe structural unemployment.

The Minister for the Environment (Mr Lim Swee Say): Sir, we have 6,990 cooked food stalls in 135 hawker centres. However, the number of vacant stalls is very small, only 46 in total. After setting aside 21 of the stalls for temporary use by hawkers under the Hawker Centre Upgrading Programme (HUP), the number of vacant stalls available for allocation is only 25. These stalls are put up for tenders on a monthly basis. The tender for this month has just closed on 17th April 2003 and the next tender will be on 6th May 2003.

Sir, Dr Wang asked whether we would review the allocation of stalls in view of structural unemployment. I presume he is referring to the direct allocation of stalls for hardship cases.

Sir, the scheme was discontinued in 1990, about 13 years ago, because, on the supply side, we had stopped building hawker centres since 1985. There is therefore no more new supply of vacant cooked food stalls built by ENV or HDB. At the same time, on the demand side, many of the hardship cases then were not prepared to take up vacant stalls as and when these stalls became available because they prefer to wait for stalls in the more popular centres.

In view of the supply and demand situations, the scheme was discontinued and interested stallholders have to tender for stalls as and when they become available. In the past three years, we have allocated 240 cooked food stalls through public tender. On average, each stall attracted about 15 applications. On the whole, the tender scheme has worked well under a market-based mechanism.

Sir, even though we have no plans to re-introduce the direct allocation of stalls for hardship cases, we will continue to create opportunities for potential stallholders. Under the HUP, we are offering cash grant to enable some of the first generation stallholders to retire. This will help free up more stalls for newcomers, including the hardship cases. So far, about 16% of stallholders have opted for cash grants under the HUP. One example is Dunman Food Centre where six stalls vacated by retiring stallholders had been tendered out so far, with another 10 more stalls up for tender in the next tendering exercise. If this trend continues, we can expect that a steady stream of stalls will continue to become available for tenders under the HUP.