Old market: one era ends, another begins
Print Edition
AS 2017 dawns, the Jiuxing Market in Qibao Town, one of the largest wholesale markets in Shanghai, is busy as usual, but the atmosphere is more somber.
The shop owners are preparing to say goodbye — some temporarily, some permanently — to a venue that has been home to them for nearly 20 years.
It was once known as the “Jiuxing miracle,” a place that epitomized poor people pulling themselves up by the bootstraps to earn a better living.
But that’s all in the past now, and it’s the market itself that is undergoing transformation. The area now surrounded by old residences and scatterings of illegal buildings is deemed a public safety hazard and a traffic knot.
Last February, the city government unveiled a “transition plan” for the market and the village surrounding it. The project will start this year. The market will be closed on February 17, and all existing buildings will be demolished by the end of June.
“A transition is inevitable,” said Wu Enfu, president of the Jiuxing Group. “After the restoration is finished, shop owners will be invited back, as long as their businesses adhere to the market’s new face.”
When Wu became Party leader of Jiuxing Village in 1994, the area was one of the poorest in Shanghai. The average annual income of residents was less than 3,000 yuan (US$432), and village-owned factories were on the verge of bankruptcy. The village couldn’t afford to pay senior pensions or medical care allowances.
Wu said the market came into being because it was too late for the village to develop serious agriculture or industry. In 1998, five specialty markets selling hardware, plywood, staples, local foods, and meat and vegetables opened.
The Jiuxing Market attracted 5,400 stall vendors and employed some 18,000 people. The village was nicknamed “the commercial mothership of Shanghai.”
Gradually, the market expanded and developed. By the end of 2015, it covered more than 1.06 million square meters, with 10,000 shops selling 28 categories of products, mostly construction and home decoration materials. Compared with 1998, the villagers’ average yearly income quadrupled.
But as land values in Shanghai skyrocketed, the market site took on a value beyond the goods it sold and the incomes it generated.
“For the past 18 years, the market was managed through booth leases,” said Wu. “But it was not the highest and best use of the land. We believe the new plan, with expanded businesses such as catering and online trading, will be of greater benefit.”
The plan calls for a more unified commercial center. Construction and home decoration materials will continue to be sold, but they will only be one facet of the expanded merchandise and services.
One area of the new market will feature creative design workshops. Another will offer entertainment and dining, in a hope that visitors to the market can be coaxed to stay longer. Online businesses will be developed to keep up with the latest trend in consumer shopping.
The travails of relocation fall on residents and current shop owners. For many, pulling up stakes is hard, even if the move is for the greater good.
Yan Jun, Party leader of Qibao Town, said the interests of residents and the shop owners need to be protected as much as possible.
“They have made a great contribution to the village, and we are forever grateful,” said Yan. “So we are fulfilling their requirements for compensation as reasonably as possible.”
After lengthy negotiations, most shop owners have accepted the government’s compensation plan, and holdouts are expected to sign agreements soon.
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