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)