Yangon seeks ways to deal with vendors, stalls

“Some roadside vendors are poor while some are relatively well off. The rents are so high – ranging up to 1 million kyat [Bt29,000] a month. There will be no confrontation. Instead, we will enforce the rules,” said an official of the YCDC’s West district.
The lists of roadside stalls from the old government are due to be updated and the authorities will continue to allow shops to open after 3pm.
Most of the shops are in Kyauktada, Pabedan and Latha townships. Shops that open before 3pm will be disciplined. Kyauktada has 80 YCDC staff members, Pabedan has 90 and Latha 30 to enforce the rules from 6am to 4pm.
There have been confrontations between YCDC staff and shopkeepers, with some cases going to court.
Roadside shops contribute to traffic jams, with some specialists suggesting they should be placed in a new location away from the main roads.
The roadside stalls have been exempted from tax since June 2011, but their opening hours are limited to five hours a day – from 3pm to 8pm.
The state has lost an estimated 800 million kyat in tax, according to the YCDC.
Across Yangon, there are more than 100,000 roadside shops, with the number increasing tenfold under the previous government.

5,500 stalls in downtown
According to an official from the YCDC, there are currently around 5,500 roadside stall operators and hawkers in some of Yangon’s downtown townships.
A recent survey found that there were around 1,300 roadside vendors in Kyauktada Township, around 2,000 in Pabedan, 1,400 in Latha and 800 in Lanmadaw.
Under the previous government, a similar report on the number of roadside stall operators was published.
It was estimated that the number of hawkers within the four busy downtown townships exceeded 10,000.
The YCDC will continue letting the vendors operate after 3pm while penalising those who break the rules by operating ahead of the permitted time.
YCDC officers have been dispatched to monitor roadside stalls in each of the townships from 6am until 4pm.
Currently, 80 officers are stationed in Kyauktada, 90 in Pabedan and 30 in Latha.
There often are cases where roadside stall operators and YCDC people clash, resulting in court cases.
According to the same YCDC official, strict regulation is required to ease the traffic congestion problems on downtown roads.
Since 2011, under the previous government’s administration, attempts were made to completely remove all roadside stalls and hawkers from Yangon, but the effort only managed to reduce the amount as well as reduce vendors’ legally allotted time for operations.