The city administration will hold the annual Passer Baroe Festival to mark Jakarta’s 483rd anniversary beginning June 25 with cultural parades and on-stage performances, such as the barongsai (Chinese lion dance), tanjidor (traditional Betawi orchestra) and a marching band.

The event is expected to draw around 1,000 people, head of the Central Jakarta tourism subagency Triyugo Prasetyo told The Jakarta Post recently.

However, Pasar Baru is in desperate need of long-term investment if it is to maintain its reputation as a historical and cultural market for tourists and traders.

“There’s still so much to upgrade in terms of beauty, cleanliness and order,” said Vashi, a textile shop superintendent at the market. “The sidewalk bricks are uneven, and have cracks and holes.”

A few meters away, two attendants from another shop were busy cementing broken bricks jutting out of the entrance walkway.

Some sections of the plastic awnings that shelter the main road were torn or broken, and some shops did not have them, leaving gaping holes where rain would drench a shopper walking from one shop to the next. Rubbish was piled up on street corners, and caught in hundreds of gaps between broken bricks on the road.

“All the shops here bear the mark of poor infrastructure. In this condition, how can Pasar Baru be an international shopping destination?” Vashi added.

Pasar Baru, the city’s oldest market, established in 1820 during the Dutch colonial rule, was named by the city administration as an international-standard shopping and tourism center. The title simply serves to increase the disappointment and shock value for tourists and shoppers who come to the market expecting a slice of Indonesian culture and a bustling traditional Asian market.

Several shops launched sales last week that will run until the end of the month offering discounts on textiles, fashion items and accessories. However, crippled by a lack of investment or credible renovation effort, the market appears shoddy and dirty.

Vashi said sales had remained stagnant since the last economic crisis that began two and a half years ago, and that significant discounts offered by the shops for the anniversary festivities had barely impacted sales.

“Sales slightly picked up for the first two to three days,” he said, adding that most shops were offering 20 to 80 percent discounts on selected items.

Aye, a shopkeeper at Lee Ie Seng stationery shop, built in 1823, said that air-conditioned trading malls in the city had drawn customers away from Pasar Baru, where makeshift street vendors spread their goods on sidewalks. “People can find similar goods in malls,” he said.

Aye said his shop would not offer discounts during the festival since it would be “pointless” given the reduced number of visitors.

Triyugo said this year’s festival would cost around Rp 287 million (US$31,000). However, he added, none of that money had been earmarked for renovating Pasar Baru, such as fixing sidewalks, roads or awnings at the market.

The head of the planning and public service department at the Central Jakarta public works subagency, Budi Sinaga, said that more than Rp 1 billion had been allocated to repair sidewalks surrounding the market, but not those lining the main market street.

“We will upgrade the sidewalks in front of certain places such as Pintu Air Raya, Istiqlal Mosque and Penabur junior high school,” he said.

With no funds available for a full renovation for Pasar Baru, Sawah Besar district’s head of public works department, Abdul Kadir, said current repair work was temporary, using cement to fill in for missing bricks and to repair cracks in tiles. (gzl)

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