On Wednesday, January 23, 2019, at the municipality’s headquarters, Abdelrahim Al-Kamili, president of the Municipal Council of Berchid, held a meeting with the National Union of Merchants, attended by the city’s pasha and a number of heads of municipal departments.
At this meeting, participants discussed the list of demands put forward by the National Union of Merchants, which included a range of issues and problems affecting the city’s merchants and artisans. The most important of these were addressing the economic and social conditions of merchants and artisans, the state of commercial stagnation, and efforts to alleviate their suffering by reducing tax fees and charges for the temporary use of public property.
In the same vein, merchants called for an end to street vendors and hawkers, their removal from Abdullah Al-Shafshawani Street in the Al-Hassani neighborhood and Yaqoub Al-Mansour Alley in the Old City, and the rehabilitation of the Old Qaisariya, along with the need to restructure Mohammed V Street and Hassan II Street by creating parking spaces, installing surveillance cameras in certain gathering areas, and canceling the annual trade fair organized by the Berchid Festival Association.
For his part, Abdelrahim Al-Kamili affirmed that the Municipal Council of Berchid will implement several measures to resolve the merchants’ problems, including providing street vendors with a suitable space to conduct their business, protecting residents from the negative effects of unregulated street vending, and preserving the city’s aesthetic appeal in accordance with standards that respect environmental safety, putting an end to overcrowding and traffic congestion on the main thoroughfares of Chafchaouni Street and Yaqoub al-Mansour Street in Berchid, regulating the activities of street vendors, and providing suitable conditions for them to conduct their business.
Ibrahim al-Sabbar
