TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Street toy vendors snub trading center plan
TOY STORY: A shop attendant at Gembrong toys market, East Jakarta, helps a customer choose a doll
Change Size
TOY STORY: A shop attendant at Gembrong toys market, East Jakarta, helps a customer choose a doll. (JP/Agnes Winarti)
City market operator PD Pasar Jaya plans to build Cipinang Besar Market on Jl. Basuki Rahmat in East Jakarta and to make it the largest toy trading center despite the existence of the Gembrong toy market stretching along the very same street.
Starting over a decade ago with small kiosks selling toys at low prices, the place has expanded to become a neighborhood of around 200 vendors.
The toy market, located in the Cipinang Besar Utara subdistrict, is only a few hundred meters away from the land planned for the 2,717-square-meter toy trading center.
“The traders are not Pasar Jaya assets ... It is not our priority to get them a place in our trading center,” Pasar Jaya director Uthand Halomoan Sitorus told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.
“But we will surely welcome them if they want to move into our kiosks,” Uthand said, adding that the Cipinang Besar market would also be open to toy vendors from other places around Jakarta.
Although the presence of Gembrong market is often blamed as the cause of traffic congestion because trading activities overtake parts of the road, the city administration is in no rush to relocate the vendors.
“They are merely residents who initiated opening toys shops in their homes along the street. We do not have the authority to relocate them,” Uthand said.
Uthand said there would be no special kiosk price at the Cipinang Besar market for the vendors from Gembrong market.
Pasar Jaya spokesman Nur Hafidz said the kiosk price would range between Rp 15 million and Rp 20 million per square meter.
Nonetheless, toys vendors of the Gembrong market are still indifferent toward possible relocation.
“If the market operator really intends on protecting us, they should invite us to discuss reasonable prices for the new kiosks,” Noviar, who has been a toy trader at Gembrong market for the past decade, told the Post on Wednesday.
“Our customers range from the haves to the have-nots because we always sell toys at affordable prices. We will not be able to continue serving customers at cheap prices if we have to buy a kiosk at Rp 300 million,” said the 44-year-old, who owns three toy shops at Gembrong market.
Lastri, a toy and stationery shop owner for more than 10 years, said, “I just don’t have that much money, so I do not intend on buying a new kiosk.”
As of December, the Post saw no construction activities take place at the 2,273-square-meter plot of vacant land in Cipinang Besar Selatan subdistrict.
“We plan to start const-ruction on Jan. 15 and complete it within eight months,” developer PT Bintang Indah Indonesia’s marketing officer Tan Ping Lin told the Post.
The multi-story market building will have a total of 292 kiosks, a canteen and parking for 30 cars.
He said Pasar Jaya had sold 18 kiosks and had received down payments for 16 more from toy vendors from other markets, like Cililitan, Asemka, Jatinegara, Senen and Bekasi.
“None of them are from the Gembrong Market,” Tan said.
A customer for the past five years, Hetty from Bekasi, hoped the Gembrong market vendors would be able to get a place in the new market building.
“They provide so many affordable toys to customers like me.”
Deputy Governor Prijanto on Tuesday urged the deve-lopers not to set the kiosk price too high for the vendors.
“Developers should set a price that vendors can afford so they can continue selling affordable goods,” he said.
Up to 14,267 kiosks, or 13.95 percent of Pasar Jaya’s total 102,264 kiosks, in 151 renovated markets are currently empty, partly due to unaffordable kiosk prices.
The Indonesian Federation of Market Vendors (FOPPI) president, Sujianto, also urged the administration to set a standard for the new kiosk prices to avoid more expensive charges at the renovated market.
Although the existing Gembrong toy vendors are not regarded as an asset of Pasar Jaya, they have potentials that are yet to be tapped for the city’s revenue.
“Sales in one of my shops alone can reach some Rp 8 million per day on weekends,” Noviar said.
