NCMP Leong Mun Wai raised the following motion in Parliament on 13 November 2024:
Hawker Culture: This House calls on the Government to review its policies relating to hawkers and the management of hawker centres to provide better support for hawkers to sustain and grow our Singapore’s hawker culture so that Singaporeans can continue to enjoy good and affordable hawker food.
In his opening speech, Mun Wai advocated for changes in government policy to sustain and grow Singapore’s unique hawker culture, emphasizing the need to support hawkers facing rising costs and challenging working conditions. He proposed forming a dedicated government agency, “Hawker Singapore,” to oversee all hawker centers, ending the social enterprise model, adjusting rental and manpower policies, and funding targeted food discounts for low-income Singaporeans. These measures were intended to ensure that Singapore’s affordable hawker food culture, recognized by UNESCO, would thrive for future generations.
Mr Speaker Sir,
I beg to move that this House calls on the Government to review its policies relating to hawkers and the management of hawker centres to provide better support for hawkers to sustain and grow our Singapore’s hawker culture so that Singaporeans can continue to enjoy good and affordable hawker food.
Sir, since 2020 our hawker culture has been recognised as an UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage. But have we provided enough support to our hawkers who are the creators of that culture?
That is the question that prompted the PSP to raise this motion today.
The UNESCO accolade aside, hawker culture and hawker food are central to our Singaporean identity. Hawker centres, coffeeshops, and food courts are spaces for Singaporeans from all walks of life, rich or poor, regardless of race, language, or religion, to interact and enjoy delicious, affordable food. It is a true melting pot for all Singaporeans. It is one of the things that Singaporeans miss when they are overseas, myself included.
While I was building my career overseas in 1990s, one of the things I missed most was a delicious bowl of laksa. In fact, I loved laksa so much that I had started a laksa stall in Tokyo in 2015 at the famous shopping district, Omotesando, in central Tokyo.
However, the hawkers who are behind the delicious local food that we enjoy have not been provided with sufficient support. A hawker’s life is a tough one. Not enough is done to address the hardship of our hawkers, who are burdened with the need to provide cheap food to the public, high rent, harsh work environment and arguably predatory management practices in the social enterprise hawker centres. We have a responsibility in this House to pass on our hawker culture to our future generations, and to ensure that it not only survives, but flourishes, long into the future.
But our hawkers will need a lot of help and support at the national level to achieve this. We need to do more than putting up shows at the National Day Parade to celebrate our hawker food heritage.
The Government did not build any new hawker centres from 1986 until 2011. Since then, many Singaporeans, including those who know the hawker trade, have stepped forward to contribute good ideas to better support hawkers.
However, besides the introduction of the social enterprise model, officially called the Socially-Conscious Enterprise Hawker Centre model, not much else has fundamentally changed about the way the Government manages hawkers. Many other ideas relating to building up the human capital of the industry and providing further support to hawkers have not been implemented.
I would like to acknowledge the effort of those Singaporeans who had participated in the relevant discussions and research. I also seek their indulgence to use some of their ideas in the debate today. Personally, the hawker trade is close to my heart. My late father was a hawker in Chinatown, the sole breadwinner for our family. My sister is a wonton noodle hawker today. I am deeply honoured to have the opportunity to speak up on this issue in this House today.
The PSP hopes that our motion today will remind Singaporeans of the people behind the good and affordable food we enjoy every day.
Some of these hawkers are with us in the House today, in the Strangers’ Gallery and I would like to acknowledge their presence.
I would like to invite the whole House to join me in a round of applause to thank them for their hard work, and their dedication to providing good food at affordable prices for Singaporeans.
Today, I will first discuss the importance of preserving and promoting our hawker culture before discussing the problems faced by hawkers. My colleague Ms Hazel Poa and I will then put forward possible policy changes to resolve these problems.
These policy recommendations are based on the belief that the success of our hawker culture is inextricably tied to the success of our hawkers.
Importance of preserving and promoting our hawker culture
First, I will speak on the importance of preserving and promoting our hawker culture. The PSP believes there are at least four major benefits.
Firstly, hawker culture and hawker food is a rich heritage handed down by our ancestors that needs to be preserved and passed on to future generations of Singaporeans. The UNESCO recognition is an added reason for us to sustain this heritage.
Secondly, affordable hawker food has provided Singaporeans a buffer against the high cost of living in Singapore. The convenience and affordability of eating out also allowed many families to earn dual incomes. With millions of meals served to Singaporeans every day, hawker centres are the “people’s kitchens”. To maintain them, we have to first help our hawkers to survive and thrive.
Thirdly, the hawker trade is one of the most conducive route for a budding entrepreneur to try out a business venture. I lived in Japan for many years, so I know of many Japanese who talked about starting a cooked food business as a business or hobby or just a place to meet friends and people. I am beginning to see this among many young Singaporeans today but their dreams are often hindered by the high entry cost to the hawker business. I am confident that with lower rent and better working conditions, hawker centres can become incubators for our future food and beverage entrepreneurs.
Last but not least, there are huge economic benefits if we promote our hawker food both domestically and internationally.
As a parallel, Thai food has done very well globally. The number of Thai restaurants overseas has tripled from about 5,000 in 2002 to 15,000 in 2024. But a large part of their success is due to strong government support, such as in training chefs, providing loans, and conducting market research to advise chefs on how to appeal to foreign tastes.
Thai dishes often rank among the top in global culinary surveys, overshadowing our local dishes.
I have been unhappy for a long time that chicken rice is recognised more as a Thai dish than a Singapore dish in Tokyo.
There is no reason why Singapore hawker food cannot be as world renowned as Thai food. The well-reviewed Urban Hawker in New York, curated by Mr K F Seetoh, is an example of the success we can achieve if we do more as a nation to promote our hawker food overseas. We can extend our soft power by winning the hearts and minds of people all over the world through their stomachs. This is another example of how we can punch above our weight.
However, despite all the significant cultural and economic benefits that hawker culture can bring to us, it may wither in the future without policy adjustments to provide greater support to our hawkers.
Problems faced by Hawkers and the Policies to resolve them
A serious examination of the problems faced by hawkers, and new policies to address these problems, are long overdue.
The crux of the problem arguably is that the Government expects hawkers to provide cheap food as a safety net amidst the very high cost-of-living environment in Singapore. Yet at the same time, the Government has created a high cost structure for hawkers to operate in. PSP calls for a holistic and comprehensive review of the hawker trade by the Government, which should cover all hawkers operating in hawker centres, coffeeshops, and food courts.
We do not know how long more we can sustain our hawker culture because of the many challenges faced by hawkers. These challenges can be grouped into four areas:
- Hawker centre management, which includes problems with the social enterprise hawker centre model;
- High rent and other operating costs;
- Harsh working conditions leading to shortage of manpower and successors;
- The expectation to provide cheap food, which is partly encouraged by the Government.
Hawker Centre Management
I will start by discussing the first problem of hawker centre management.
There are more than 120 hawker centres in Singapore today. Out of these, 12 are managed by private operators under the social enterprise model, as of 31 December 2023. Since the introduction of the social enterprise model in 2012, we have seen multiple conflicts between hawkers and social enterprise operators because of the high costs and onerous contractual conditions compared to NEA-operated hawker centres.
For example, in 2018, the hawkers of the Jurong West Hawker Centre filed a petition against a 20-cent tray return surcharge imposed by Hawker Management, a social enterprise operator and subsidiary of the Koufu Group. It was also reported publicly in June 2024 that the hawkers of Bukit Canberra Hawker Centre tried to lower costs by asking the operator to let them use a cheaper gas provider and charge more than 30 cents for plastic containers, but they were denied.
Based on replies to my past PQs, we know that the median rent at social enterprise hawker centres is about 5% higher than the median rent at NEA-operated hawker centres. However, auxiliary costs at the social enterprise hawker centres, such as table cleaning fees, dishwashing fees, S&CC fees, and pest control fees, can add up to as much as the rent itself.
Hawkers in social enterprise hawker centres also face many hidden costs. For example, they must bear the costs of offering loyalty discounts, budget meals, and subscriptions to food delivery platforms. All these are part of the long list of onerous contractual obligations on hawkers who may have to pay damages or receive demerit points if they fail to meet these requirements.
Following the outcry in 2018 against the social enterprise operators, NEA reviewed the key contractual terms between such operators and their stallholders, and asked operators to made changes with effect from 1 January 2019[1].
However, the contractual terms seem to have continued to be very onerous as I have confirmed in a contract signed by a hawker of a social enterprise hawker centre in 2022. Over the years, the officeholders have repeatedly come out to say that the social enterprise model is sound, working well, and has benefited hawkers and customers. But it is a sign that things are not going well when many more hawkers of social enterprise hawker centres are terminating their contract earlier compared to hawkers of NEA-operated hawker centres.
From 2019 to 2023, the average annual early termination rate for food stalls at social enterprise hawker centres was 8%, more than twice as high as the 3% early termination rate at NEA-operated hawker centres[2]. The social enterprise model is arguably not helping to sustain and grow the hawker culture.
I have done some calculations on the potential cost burdens imposed on hawkers by social enterprises.
For example, it was reported that JW Heritage, another social enterprise operator and a subsidiary of the Chang Cheng Mee Wah Group, paid $4.86 million to the Government to manage the Jurong West Hawker Centre when it reopened in 2023. Since there are 39 stalls there, this contract price translates into a cost of $125,000 per stall. This cost represents a huge cost burden which must be recouped either from the stallholders or customers.
But is it justifiable for private operators to extract surpluses or profits from hawker centres which are public assets, even if 50% is required to go back to programmes that benefit the hawker centres and hawkers?
The PSP recommends that the current social enterprise model be phased out as the contracts of the current operators expire. This will eliminate the problems in social enterprise hawker centres. PSP proposes that hawker centre management be taken over by a new government agency tentatively called Hawker Singapore. This agency can be formed by transferring the current Hawker Centres Group of NEA to it and then expanding further.
Hawker Singapore will oversee the management of all hawker centres in Singapore and the promotion of hawker culture domestically and internationally, working together with other relevant agencies such as the Singapore Tourism Board and Enterprise Singapore.
It will work with hawkers in each hawker centre to develop its own unique value proposition within the general guidelines laid down by itself. We envisage that Hawker Singapore will be advised by an independent industry expert panel to formulate strategies, finance expansion and assist hawkers to professionalise their business.
We also propose that Hawker Singapore should set up a hawker academy to be a focal point for training young hawkers. Former Member Mr Leon Pereira had raised this in this House in 2021 and PSP supports this suggestion. A hawker academy will provide training and succession planning for hawkers, set standards for the hawker trade, and help to preserve a selection of heritage foods that are important to our different communities.
High Rent
In addition to centralising the management of all hawker centres, I will present 3 more policy recommendations to deal with the 3 other problems I discussed earlier. These recommendations will provide the impetus to preserve and grow the hawker trade in a sustainable way.
Firstly, to deal with the problem of high rent, the Government needs to move away from the practice of setting hawker stall rents by tender.
While rent may not be the largest cost item for a hawker, it is the biggest burden because it is a fixed cost. Hawkers can save on variable costs but not fixed costs. Only the pioneer cooked food hawkers who were resettled from the streets get to enjoy subsidised rentals between $192 and $384 per month at the NEA-operated hawker centres. They represent about 30% of hawkers today. The non-subsidised stalls which account for 70% of the hawkers must pay market rent determined via the tender system where stalls are rented out to the highest bidder.
In 2023, the median monthly rent for non-subsidised stalls at NEA-operated hawker centres was $1,625 per month[3] but bids frequently exceeded that, especially for stalls in better locations with higher footfall. One successful tender recently exceeded $10,000 per month[4]. While allowing bids to hit new records through the tender system, the Government also reduces a tendered rent to an assessed market rent when the hawker renews their contract after the initial 3-year contract. In other words, from the 4th year onwards, the $10,000 bidder will pay a much lower rent for the same stall.
Last week, the Government announced that it would prolong the time required to adjust the tendered rent to the assessed market rent so as to deter excessively high hawker stall bids. This latest change shows that the Government is aware of the problems of the current system. However, the question of why such a system still exists remains.
The current tender system has the negative effect of driving up headline rentals in hawker centres. This can have a ripple effect on the rents and values of HDB coffeeshops. Several HDB coffeeshops have been transacted at multi-million dollars in recent years by large business groups. A record price of $9,361 per square foot was set in 2022 by the Chang Cheng Mee Wah Group when it bought a Yishun coffeeshop for $40 million. Such high market prices for coffeeshops have been a major cause of the rising cooked food prices and cost of living in Singapore.
The PSP recommends that we move away from the tendering model altogether. Instead, we propose a more flexible rent model with the aim of lowering rent and curbing excessive speculation in coffeeshops.
Under this rent model, all hawker stalls will be charged a monthly base rent of $500 or 3% of Gross Turnover, whichever is higher. Stalls will be allocated by a random ballot within each food category curated by Hawker Singapore, under the advice of the independent industry panel.
Currently, NEA has five categories of stalls: cooked food, halal cooked food, Indian cuisine, drinks, and cut fruits. We suggest adding a sixth category, namely heritage foods, to ensure that as many traditional foods unique to the different races in Singapore as possible are preserved. For example, it would be nice to see a revival of Eurasian food in our hawker centres. Later, my colleague Ms Hazel Poa will present a possible model for curating hawker stalls.
PSP’s proposed rental model is skewed to support smaller hawkers with lower rents. It will lower the barriers of entry for new hawkers and thus enhance the sustainability of our hawker trade. At the same time, it will not price out hawkers who are successful in growing their business.
Shortage of Manpower
Secondly, we need to adjust the manpower policies for hawkers to deal with the problem of manpower shortage and the lack of successors.
The hawker trade is physically demanding, taxing on their health, and even dangerous, especially for elderly hawkers. Hawkers must deal with long working hours. For example, to serve the breakfast crowd at 6 or 7am, hawkers must wake up at 1am or 2am. Floors in hawker stalls are slippery or oily and hawkers must work around hot oil, knives, and choppers. There have been many accidents involving hawkers.
In September, it was reported that a famous Chinatown claypot rice hawker, Uncle Hong, decided to retire because of complications after he fell and broke his pelvic bone[5]. Mr Tan Hock Guan who ran the Michelin-recognised Guan Kee Fried Kway Teow stall at Ghim Moh also retired last November after he fainted while frying kway teow.
All these are not new to me, I have witnessed as a child the many accidents and hardships experienced by the Chinatown neighbours of mine who are hawkers. Some might have made some money but usually they had to retire relatively young due to various ailments. For hawkers, additional manpower can help to reduce their work load and prolong their working life. However, apart from hawker stall owners, few Singaporeans would want to work at a hawker stall. In this case, a work permit holder will complement our current hawkers without threatening the job security of Singaporeans.
Therefore, PSP recommends that each cooked food hawker stall, including drinks and cut fruit stalls, should be allowed to employ one work permit holder as a stall assistant. This is not completely new policy because the Government already allows companies operating coffeeshops and food courts to hire work permit holders[6].
PSP believes that the recent move to allow hawkers to employ LTVP holders as stall assistants will not be adequate to address the manpower problem of the hawkers.
It is difficult to understand why coffeeshop and food court operators are allowed to employ work permit holders and individual hawkers are not. Our policy proposal will not undermine the Singaporean character of our hawker centres because only one Work Permit holder is allowed per stall.
At the same time, it will reduce the workload of senior hawkers and allow them to continue their trade for a longer time, while we encourage more young Singaporeans and second-generation hawkers to enter the hawker trade with our new rent structure and training at the new hawker academy. This provides more assurance that our hawker culture remains sustainable.
Targeted Provision of Discounts for Hawker Food
Thirdly, to keep hawker food affordable in the immediate future, the Government should provide targeted discounts for needy groups and adjust the “budget meal” policies that have emerged in recent years.
The Government has introduced the “budget meal” initiative, possibly to insulate Singaporeans from rising costs in other areas like housing, COEs, and healthcare. Social enterprise hawker centres and some HDB coffeeshops already contractually force stallholders to sell budget meals, usually at $3 or $3.50. By 2026, all stalls in rental HDB coffeeshops will be required to sell these budget meals.
The problem is that all these “budget meals” are paid for by the hawkers.
Hawkers in social enterprise hawker centres are also forced to provide discounts, at their expense, to Pioneer, Merdeka, and CHAS cardholders. I do not believe there is any other industry where we contractually force suppliers to sell items below a certain price. When HDB rents out shop spaces for supermarkets in the new estates, for example, HDB does not contractually force the supermarket operator to sell some budget food items below market prices. So why do we require this of our hawkers?
Every cent earned by the hawkers is hard-earned money. Half of the stallholders in the hawker centres are lower-income Singaporeans who received the Workfare Income Supplement in 2020[7]. These hawkers are in no position to do charity and should not be forced to do so. Hawkers should be allowed to determine their own prices, which should not be controlled by the Government or operators. They deserve to be fairly remunerated and incentivised to sell good and affordable food to Singaporeans.
It is the Government’s responsibility to ensure that food remains affordable.
We propose that discounts for Pioneer, Merdeka, and CHAS cardholders should be paid for the Government, for example through the funds in the Pioneer or Merdeka Generation Funds. These discounts should be available for food at all hawker centres. The Government can also provide lower-income households with more CDC Vouchers so that they can use these vouchers to pay for their hawker meals.
Conclusion
Sir, in conclusion, our hawker culture is a precious inheritance from our pioneer generation which we should preserve and grow. The UNESCO accolade has given us an added reason to do so. However, high operating costs and harsh working environment have deterred younger Singaporeans from entering the hawker trade while existing hawkers are aging and retiring.
As a result, our distinctively Singaporean hawker culture and food are fast disappearing. The Government’s policy responses to these problems are too little and too late.
I have shared 4 policy changes to improve the prospects and livelihoods of our hawkers so that they are motivated to professionalise, innovate and sustain our hawker culture.
Firstly, PSP recommends that the social enterprise hawker centre be phased out and the management of hawkers centralised under a new government agency called Hawker Singapore.
We have also proposed a new rent model which will charge lower rent and is intended to have ripple effects on rents in coffeeshops and food courts.
Next, we proposed allowing each hawker stall to employ one work permit holder as stall assistant.
Finally, instead of forcing hawkers to provide “budget meals” at their own expense, the Government should pay for targeted food discounts for Pioneer, Merdeka, and CHAS cardholders at all hawker centres and provide lower-income households with more CDC vouchers.
My colleague Ms Hazel Poa will speak on two other policy proposals later on centralising procurement of essential ingredients and revising the Code of Conduct for Leasing of Retail Premises.
PSP believes that our six proposed policy changes will reinvigorate our hawker culture and allow it to shine brightly on the global culinary scene. At the same time, it will ensure that the hawker centre, the People’s Kitchen of our nation, will provide us with affordable food for many more generations to come.
Only then can we say our hawker culture has truly lived up to its reputation as a UNESCO Intangible World Heritage.
Sir, I beg to move. For Country For People.
[1] https://www.nea.gov.sg/docs/default-source/media-files/news-releases-docs/cos-2019/cos-2019-mediafactsheet—hawker-centres.pdf
[2] https://www.mse.gov.sg/resource-room/category/2024-10-15-written-reply-to-pq-on-rental-contracttermination-in-sehcs
[3] https://www.mse.gov.sg/resource–room/category/2024–02–06–written–reply–to–pq–on–median–monthly–rentfor–hawker–stall/
[4] https://www.mse.gov.sg/resource–room/category/2024–09–09–oral–reply–to–pq–on–hawker–stall–rentals
[5] https://www.8days.sg/eatanddrink/hawkerfood/chinatown-claypot-cooked-food-kitchen-hawker-retires-835581
[6] https://www.gobusiness.gov.sg/browse-all-licences/singapore-food-agency-(sfa)/food-shop-licence
[7] https://sprs.parl.gov.sg/search/#/sprs3topic?reportid=written-answer-12984##
