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.
Taiwanese Olympic badminton men’s doubles gold medalist Wang Chi-lin (王齊麟) and his new partner, Chiu Hsiang-chieh (邱相榤), clinched the men’s doubles title at the Yonex Taipei Open yesterday, becoming the second Taiwanese team to win a title in the tournament. Ranked 19th in the world, the Taiwanese duo defeated Kang Min-hyuk and Ki Dong-ju of South Korea 21-18, 21-15 in a pulsating 43-minute final to clinch their first doubles title after teaming up last year. Wang, the men’s doubles gold medalist at the 2020 and 2024 Olympics, partnered with Chiu in August last year after the retirement of his teammate Lee Yang
FALSE DOCUMENTS? Actor William Liao said he was ‘voluntarily cooperating’ with police after a suspect was accused of helping to produce false medical certificates Police yesterday questioned at least six entertainers amid allegations of evasion of compulsory military service, with Lee Chuan (李銓), a member of boy band Choc7 (超克7), and actor Daniel Chen (陳大天) among those summoned. The New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office in January launched an investigation into a group that was allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified medical documents. Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) has been accused of being one of the group’s clients. As the investigation expanded, investigators at New Taipei City’s Yonghe Precinct said that other entertainers commissioned the group to obtain false documents. The main suspect, a man surnamed
DEMOGRAPHICS: Robotics is the most promising answer to looming labor woes, the long-term care system and national contingency response, an official said Taiwan is to launch a five-year plan to boost the robotics industry in a bid to address labor shortages stemming from a declining and aging population, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The government approved the initiative, dubbed the Smart Robotics Industry Promotion Plan, via executive order, senior officials told a post-Cabinet meeting news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s population decline would strain the economy and the nation’s ability to care for vulnerable and elderly people, said Peter Hong (洪樂文), who heads the National Science and Technology Council’s (NSTC) Department of Engineering and Technologies. Projections show that the proportion of Taiwanese 65 or older would
The government is considering polices to increase rental subsidies for people living in social housing who get married and have children, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. During an interview with the Plain Law Movement (法律白話文) podcast, Cho said that housing prices cannot be brought down overnight without affecting banks and mortgages. Therefore, the government is focusing on providing more aid for young people by taking 3 to 5 percent of urban renewal projects and zone expropriations and using that land for social housing, he said. Single people living in social housing who get married and become parents could obtain 50 percent more
RSS