Building a one-stop shop at the market
Local Government Minister Kumar intends to set up small and micro enterprises in central market facilities.
The Minister for Local Government, Premila Kumar, is on a mission. She intends to build a facility close to central markets to house small and micro enterprises, a SME municipal market that will provide a space for small business owners to run their businesses.
Sharing her vision with the Fiji Sun, Ms Kumar says she understands that people spend an hour or even two in central markets on Saturdays shopping for their week’s fruits and vegetables. Keeping this in mind and the increasing number of people who cross through our markets weekly, Ms Kumar intends to build an adjacent facility for SMEs.
Since this will come under the municipal councils, rental for the kiosks and small shops will be relatively reasonable. Her first project would be at the new Laqare Market in Nasinu and she has already started talks with donour agencies such as UN Women to fund the facility.
She explained the reason behind this and how this would help SMEs around the country and bring customers their way.
“The reason being, if we have our
SME municipal market attached to the central markets, or food and vegetable market, then there is a tendency for the small businesses to really grow. It’s a Fijian culture that on a Saturday we all go to the market. And we spend a good one hour or even sometimes two hours in the market, doing all our vegetable shopping and other produce that we buy,” the minister said. “The idea of SME attached to the central market is to allow consumers to do their shopping on a Saturday, and at the same time they can go to this SME municipal market where they can, for example, give their clothes for stitching or their shoes for repair, and then the following week, when they are again back in the market they can collect those items and off they go.”
The SME market is aimed at businesses such as tailoring shops, a small business selling clothes’ material to complement the tailoring shop, a varieties stall, one selling accessories such as earrings or necklaces, a phone and laptop repair shop or even a shop selling phones, recharge cards and eTicket top up kiosks.
Given that customers are guaranteed to come to the central market for their fruits and vegetables, it is also guaranteed that some of those customers would stop by at the SME market for other business.
“So, it’s a guaranteed situation where you do expect someone will access the services of SME. So, the SME municipal market is more to allow small businesses or micro businesses to grow. If it is a SME municipal market that means the rental amount will be lesser. So obviously, they’ll be able to start small. And once they grow big, then they can move out. We’ve already seen the interest expressed by the business community, this is mainly from micro and small businesses,” she said.
“And with that combination that whole area then becomes a hub of business activity. People can just go in, get their fruits and vegetables, stop by a butcher in the next facility and then you can just hop over on the other side and visit these small businesses. So that’s my vision, and I would love to set up.”
She also has plans to see how the existing markets can be better used. Ms Kumar said the markets built here have cost around $5.2 million to $7.2 million and it was important that it was fully utilitsed.
“The concept where the markets are locked up and people go home is not properly thought out. I want to tidy up the existing markets and hopefully be able to implement the concept where, for example, the markets can be used for other activities such as selling a variety of street food, which is hygienically prepared.”