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Provide vendors outlets to sell their wares

China Daily | Updated: 2009-11-10 09:06

Some street vendors have reportedly bought wireless interphones to warn fellow peddlers against approaching city guards. Instead of picking up the vendors and denying them self-employment, the government should provide them with outlets to sell their wares, says an article in the Beijing News, excerpts:

"They're moving quickly to the west, flee immediately," a man whispers into his wireless interphone on a city street. If you think he is selling narcotics, you're wrong. It is part of a conversation between vendors of cheap merchandise.

Some vendors have reportedly formed teams that tail city guards and keep watch against incoming "dangers" so that their brethren can peddle their wares on streets. A few of the team members are even equipped with wireless interphones.

But wireless devices, are expensive for the vendors, most of who make a hand-to-mouth living by selling socks or other hosiery, or fruits, sweet potatoes or other edibles. The cost for wireless interphones could be covered easily by those who trade in goods with a fairly high added value, such as drugs and pirated CDs. But other vendors will take months to cover the cost of one.

Officials say the vendors do not get any benefit by tailing or keeping watch against city guards. Instead, the wireless interphones they are forced to buy only shows how hard vendors' lives are.

It is difficult to see what harm vendors have caused to a city. Why can't city guards just leave these them alone? As it is, they lead a very hard life.

Congestion-free pavements, underpasses and footbridges indeed make a city look nice. But isn't people's well being the primary goal of city authorities?

It is easy for city guards to engage in a "race" with vendors. Yet a better solution would be to follow the laws of the market and provide an outlet for them. If our urban management doesn't undergo a change, the use of wireless devices could be just the beginning of a "turf war" between vendors and city guards.

(China Daily 11/10/2009 page9)

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