Beijing's famous outdoor Silk Market, stacked with fake brand-name goods, is set to be demolished and moved to an indoor site because of concerns over fire dangers, state media said yesterday.
The Xiushui Market, as it is referred to in Chinese, is one of Beijing's most popular tourist sites, drawing crowds of up to 20,000 people on weekends searching for cheap, fake designer shoes, coats and bags.
But its fate has been under a cloud since authorities decided the narrow thoroughfare was a fire risk. A decision now appears to be have been made to knock it down, the China Daily said, although an exact date for the demolition has not been set.
PHOTO: AFP
The paper said the area where the market is located, near the equally famous Friendship Store which is itself under threat of closure, will be turned into a street to ease the increasingly gridlocked traffic along Chang'an Avenue.
According to the paper, it will be moved to a new indoor building over eight stories tall that can accommodate 1,000 stalls.
While one of China's commitments to the WTO was to crack down on intellectual property rights (IPR) abuses, places like the Silk Market continue to thrive.
According to experts, China produces some 70 percent of the world's counterfeit goods, with pirated music and video discs and all manner of fake brand-name products widely available. In an indication of the size of the problem, the Silk Market alone has annual sales of more than 100 million yuan (US$12 million).
The report comes just days before US Commerce Secretary Don Evans visits Beijing. On his last trip in October, Evans slammed China's poor IPR record.
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