City told to give traditional marts chance to compete
City told to give traditional marts chance to compete
JAKARTA (JP): The government has been asked to set aside more
funds to renovate traditional markets in a bid to help them
compete with supermarkets and other modern business centers.
Ratna Djuwita Wahab, chairperson of the Trade, Cooperative and
Business Development Bureau of the National Development Planning
Board, said over the weekend that the renovation of traditional
markets is badly needed because their customers are increasingly
abandoning them for modern shopping centers.
Speaking at a one-day seminar on traditional trade development
strategy, Ratna said that in their development, modern markets
tend to expand their business by building new stores near the
traditional markets.
"They take over the customers of traditional markets by
providing better and interesting services and transparent prices.
Even the products sold in the modern markets are not much
different from traditional markets," she said.
"The government should work out a policy to protect
traditional markets because, if not, the expansion of modern
markets will severely affect the traditional ones," she said.
"In Jakarta alone, there are 490 markets of which 104 are
classified into the informal market group, 162 traditional and
224 modern," said Hamzah Jaspinoe, a director of the city-owned
market company PD Pasar Jaya.
The number of modern supermarkets is increasing steadily in
the city, mainly due to changing lifestyles and purchasing
behavior among Jakartans as a result of the country's economic
growth, the increasing population and globalization process, he
said.
The steady increase of supermarkets is projected to continue
over the next few years, Hamzah said, reiterating that if
traditional markets are not upgraded they will be shunned by
their regular customers.
Meanwhile, Anton Lukmanto, a director of Hero Supermarket,
said that it is beyond the point of discussing competition
between traditional and modern markets.
"The point is how to create cooperation needed to support the
development of retail business in the country," he said. (31)