Licensed retail tenants at Bangkok’s Chatuchak Market are being squeezed from both sides from overcharging landlords and unlicensed flea-market style vendors who undercut their prices.
A small group of business people who lease multiple stalls from the Bangkok Metropolitan Authority (BMA) turn around and lease the individual stalls with massive mark-ups, The Bangkok Post reported.
Despite the fact that control of the market has changed hands from the BMA to the State Railway of Thailand (SRT), vendors told the Post that they were still paying the same middlemen. It was unclear from the story whether those middlemen are paying rent to the BMA or SRT.
Also giving Chatuchak tenants headaches are traders who sell goods unlicensed on the market’s inner roads near Kamphaengphet Road. Authorities have done little to stop the illegal practice, a fashion designer and vendor named Kie told the Post.
“Rents are quite high but we can sustain it if we do not have competition from traders who set up on the market’s inner road,” he said. “They can cut their prices for their products as they pay much cheaper rates than ours.” Kie pays THB33,000 rent a month for his two booths, while the roadside trader pay about THB3,000-6,000, he said.
Kie said that he was thinking about moving shop from Chatuchak, but that he was willing to give the SRT a chance to see how they manage the market.
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