Yangon govt mulls new “high-class” sidestreet markets
The Yangon Region government is planning a range of measures to make Yangon more livable, including developing the waterfront into public space and moving vendors onto quieter side streets and into planned ‘hawker centres’. U Phyo Min Thein, Yangon Chief Minister, said last week that the government was planning to improve the Yangon river waterfront area to make it more accessible for the public. “We will turn Yangon waterfront into a public space, so we will remove the brick wall along the waterfront and replace it with a fence so that people can see the river,” he said. The chief minister was speaking at a press conference for the Yangon Living Street Experience, which was held last weekend. U Phyo Min Thein added that the 1.4 kilometre waterfront area had many old warehouses that the government would renovate, allowing shopping malls or hawker centres to open so that “people can feel free at the waterfront and relax at the shops”.
