Jose Herminio Díaz, FESTIVES Secretary General, a StreetNet Affiliate from El-Salvador introduces current changes for the street traders in his country.
The Municipality Plan to reorder the city was launched on 20 April. The municipality said that vendors who were in the near of the National Palace will be relocated. Besides that, vendors of Plaza José de San Martín will move to a temporal place assigned by the plan.
Street vendors that were in the center of the San Salvador city will move to the new Market Cuscatlán. Municipality workers are helping 700 informal vendors to move there.
Right now they are checking that all services (electricity, water, etc.) are fine. Nayib Bukele, the Mayor of the city wants to reorganize the center of the city without using violence and they are having some dialogue with entrepreneurs and street vendors of the zone.
He said he had 300 meetings with informal traders to do that.
It is very important for the Mayor that informal traders support the strategic measures of the municipality. He also mentioned that the New market will be open in August of this year and will be one of the most modern and secure markets of the country.
After 30 years of disorder and saturation, street traders of Plaza General José de San Martín have agreed with the Mayor to relocate their stalls.
Vendors located in the near of the National Palace will dislodge voluntarily that area as a part of the municipality plan to recover the city.
The mayor said that they have recovered 20 blocks of the center of the city. The first stage of relocation of vendors will be developed in the next 18 months without using violence.
They are planning to recover in total 209 blocks of the center of the city.
However there is a division of opinions between street vendors regarding the Mayor’s plan. One group think that the changes of the municipality are positive, the other group instead, rejects those changes.
Herminio Díaz, FESTIVES Secretary General believes that the dialogue and promises of the municipality have ensured the development of activities for a better San Salvador.
Moreover, it is the first time that such kind of plan respects the rights of street vendors and they (street vendors) agree to be relocated.
The municipality is supposed to invest 100 million US dollars to reorder the Historic Center of the city.
Information provided by Jose Herminio Díaz.
