Phnom Penh City Hall has negotiated an installment system for O’Russei Market vendors to pay their 20-year fees, though some vendors are still seeking a reduction.
Vegetable sellers on Mao Tse Toung Blvd. are pushing back against authorities clearing them from a stretch of a major Phnom Penh road while citing the need to beautify the city for Asean conferences and other international events.
There is no official market at Kour Srov, but vendors from Phnom Penh’s Doeum Kor wholesale market have turned it into a makeshift market. As Covid-19 restrictions remain at many of the city’s major markets, vendors have spread out to the city limits to sell their wares.
Ratanakiri authorities say they are running out of rapid tests as they track the remote province’s first major Covid-19 outbreak, imposing a curfew across the province after more than 100 cases were found in one day.
Public markets have been allowed to reopen all stalls — not only essential items — in a late-night announcement by Phnom Penh City Hall, as shoppers on Tuesday welcomed a return to relatively normal routines.
Some vendors spent Monday cleaning their stalls in anticipation of opening for sales on Tuesday, but amid persistent Covid-19 fears as well as precautions — which restrict reopenings to only sellers of essential foodstuffs — the return of market activity was a trickle rather than a rush.
Kandal provincial authorities have told farmers to stop posting photos of vegetables spoiling in their fields without a market amid lockdowns as they were affecting morale, an official said.
The question of reducing rents for spaces at closed-down markets is stalled amid an ongoing surge of Covid-19 cases, with the Phnom Penh governor telling vendors to hold off on paying until the outbreak is stopped and authorities can negotiate with owners.
All public and informal markets in Phnom Penh are to be closed from Saturday, City Hall has announced, though some remained open — and were drawing many shoppers — as of the morning.
Some vegetable growers in Kandal province say their produce is rotting in their fields as Phnom Penh markets are shut down for the Covid-19 lockdown and traders face a crackdown by continuing to sell in violation of public health measures.
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