50 Hawker and Market Stalls To Be Awarded, with 38% of stalls with bids below reserve rents

Singapore, 22 May 2012 – The new hawker stall allocation policies announced at the Budget Debate in March, aimed at moderating cost pressure on food prices and increasing the utilisation of vacant stalls in our hawker centres, are showing encouraging results.

Senior Minister of State, Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources (MEWR) Ms Grace Fu had announced during MEWR’s Committee of Supply Debate that a reserve rent would no longer be set when tendering out vacant stalls from 1 April 2012. Vacant stalls are allocated to the highest bidder, as long as there are competitive bids. This allows the market to set its clearing price for stalls and works in tandem with other revisions to hawker policies aimed at moderating stall rentals and reducing cost pressure on stallholders, such as controlling subletting and assignment of stalls.

Single Bids To Go For Re-tender
In the monthly tender exercises for vacant stalls in March and April organised by the National Environment Agency (NEA), 50 hawkers have successfully obtained their stalls. Of these 50 stalls, the successful bids for 19 stalls, or 38%, are below the previous reserve rents and would not have been awarded under the previous stall allocation regime.

Out of the 194 stalls which were put out for tender in the past two rounds of tenders, 31 stalls received only single bids. Instead of requiring competition from multiple bids, NEA has decided to also award stalls that receive single bids over 2 tender exercises. Therefore, all stalls which had received a single bid in the March and April exercises will be re-tendered in May. Should the stall receive only a single bid again in this second tender, it will be awarded to the single bidder. This method will more accurately affirm the extent of market interest and determine the market-valued price for the stall.  This principle would henceforth also apply to subsequent tender exercises. (Please see Annex for more detailed information on the results of the March and April tender exercises.)

Senior Minister of State Grace Fu said, “The revised policy of allocating vacant stalls to the highest bidder so long as there are competitive bids should help ease stall rentals and thereby moderate costs for hawkers, which benefits our objective of maintaining food price affordability for the community.  I am happy to observe that successful bids from the March and April tender exercises have trended downwards as compared to previous months, with many of them below the previous reserve rents. I hope that our available stall spaces can be better utilised as more becomes aware of the revised policies. This would also help increase the variety of eating and marketing options available to the community.”

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ANNEX

March 2012 Tender Result

April 2012 Tender Result

March & April 2012 Tender Results