Setting up stalls on the streets of Yangon is technically illegal. Yet the pavements of downtown are crowded with vendors, hawking everything from fruit to alarm clocks and underwear.
Why? Because the practice of selling and renting pavement between the hours of 3pm and 8pm has been informally tolerated by local authorities for years, with home or building owners touting the space in front of their properties. Unofficial ‘taxmen’ even come around collecting money, vendors told the Myanmar Times.
Now, those traditions could be coming to an end, after the Yangon City Development Committee put up dozens of signs around downtown earlier this week stating that selling or renting public land is prohibited.
The signs were erected following a meeting between Yangon Mayor Maung Maung Soe and various vendors. On Facebook, the Mayor posted a vow to create a free environment for vendors and action against people who exploit them.
“Nobody is allowed to sell or rent public land,” Maung Maung Zaw, head of YCDC’s administration department, told The Myanmar Times. “We need to let everybody know that this is illegal. People are making money by pretending to own space on the pavements and we are worried that they are taking advantage of vendors.”
The administration isn’t banning street vendors – they will continue to be allowed to trade between 3pm and 8pm – at least until new markets can be built, according to the Times.
Vendors have been paying as much as K500,000 ($500) for their tiny plots of space – giving the money to building owners or other vendors who staked out the spot. The right to sell the land has reportedly led to fights.
“I have been selling here for five years through an agreement with a local house owner,” said Tin Myint who sells snacks in Pazundaung township. “I have to give them money and I pick up all my rubbish. People from YCDC also collect tax, though they have not collected it recently.”
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