You know you’re living in Singapore when costs everywhere are high. You’ve definitely heard some friends or family complaining about inflation rates and the skyrocketing housing rental rates.
Commercial rental rates are not safe from rising prices as well. As our readers may already be aware, this year’s Geylang Serai Ramadan Bazaar has been hit with a suite of criticism, one of which involves exorbitant rental prices for stalls offered.
In particular, the base rental rates for retail stalls peaked at around S$12,000, while F&B stalls could command up to an eye-watering range of $14,000 to $19,000.
How many months’ salary of an average Singaporean is that?
Given the buzz around rental rates, here’s the official response regarding bazaar stall costs.
Minister Responds to Geylang Serai Ramadan Bazaar Stalls Having Sky-High Rent
The iconic annual Geylang Serai Ramadan bazaars are part of the People’s Association’s (PA) many initiatives. For those who may not know, the bazaars have more than seven decades of history behind them, first starting in the 1950s when traders and peddlers hawked their food and goods during the holy Ramadan month.
In response to rent speculations, the deputy chairman of PA, Mr Edwin Tong, holds firm to the rules of demand and supply.
For those who find Mr Tong’s name familiar, Mr Tong is also the Minister for Culture, Community and Youth.
According to Mr Tong, responding to a question about keeping stall rentals affordable during a parliamentary session, the stallholders are usually experienced and have knowledge of the average stall prices based on previous years’ bazaars or other trade fairs. This means that the stallholders can reference the published prices for each stall to decide whether the stall is worth bidding for.
As the publisher has published the rates or rentals they are looking for, keen stallholders should “make their own calculations” and consider carefully before bidding. They should also think about what they can afford, sell and eventually recoup.
In other words, since there is a limited supply of stalls available at the bazaar, a larger demand for this finite “resource” may drive prices up. Especially if stallholders get to bid for the stalls and start to out-bid each other, further inflating already high prices.
We can only say that competition is everywhere. These owners took up the stalls with their eyes wide open (though it might be from shock at the high prices).
In any case, it also appears that the high rentals are not deterring interested stallholders since they have the opportunity to do brisk business at such bazaars. Mr Tong further shared during the parliament session that they have “anecdotal evidence” regarding some stallholders having “recouped their rental expenses” somewhere “around the midway point”.
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Bazaar Is Run by a Professional Operator Selected Through an Open Tender Process
While the PA organises the annual Geylang Serai Ramadan bazaar together with Wisma Geylang Serai, they do not personally oversee the operations of the bazaar. Instead, the operation of the bazaar itself is outsourced to a vendor based on an open tender process.
For the 2023 run of the bazaar, the winner of the tender was a consortium of operators made up of three companies, S-Lite Event Support, TLK Trade Fair and Events, and Enniche Global Trading.
Before you walk away with the wrong impression that you need to throw money to win the operation rights to the bazaar, know that the highest bidder is not always guaranteed the operation rights.
Mr Tong mentions that the bazaar operator with the best experience, expertise and proposal will be selected to run and manage the daily operations of the bazaar. In fact, this year’s winning bid was not the highest bid.
The operator has a heavy responsibility on its shoulders, as it has to ensure not only the safety of the attendees but also maintain an adequate supply of utilities and amenities as well as provide good logistical support for the stall owners.
For those who think they’re up to scratch to manage such large-scale events, working in a bazaar operator firm may well turn out to be lucrative (but watch out for netizens and their attacks about rising rent prices).
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