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Newsstands face battle amid changing times

(China Daily)    09:52, December 10, 2018

A newsstand in Beijing. WANG JING/CHINA DAILY

Street kiosks challenged by ubiquity of internet

Zhang Fan, 33, stopped by a newsstand one recent Sunday morning near his home in Beijing to buy a magazine, only to find the stand had been shut down.

Zhang, a designer living on the Guangqumenwai street in Chaoyang district, used to visit a stand just 500 meters from his residential community to buy newspapers and magazines.

But since he started to read news and other material on his phone, he can count on one hand the number of times he has visited the stand in the past year. He had not even noticed it had been closed for the past four months.

Due to falling demand for newspapers and magazines, newsstands in many cities have been closing. They have also been criticized for obstructing roads and sidewalks and for generally being eyesores.

The Beijing municipal government has decided to upgrade and regulate the city's newsstands by turning them into "innovative reading spaces" and "convenient service providers" to better serve the public.

Li Zhigang, who is in his 40s and comes from Anhui province, runs a different newsstand in Guangqumenwai.

"I haven't been given any notice of closure, but I noticed most newsstands within the Second Ring Road were torn down this year," he said. "I don't know any details about the new policy, but I hope I can continue my business."

According to the Beijing Municipal Commission of City Management, the city's newsstands will be better located based on passenger flow, the number of people living in nearby residential communities, and public demand.

Under the plan drafted by the commission and the Beijing Municipal Commerce Bureau, newsstands will become more like convenience stores and be "more fashionable".

The plan has been submitted to the municipal government for approval. An official with the commission, who declined to be named, said the plan clearly states that the number of newsstands in the city should be based on public need.

"There is no easy way to solve the contradiction between people who love the printed word and have the habit of buying from the newsstands, and the owners' continued operational losses," the official said. "It's also difficult to decide which department is responsible for footing the bill to upgrade newsstands."

The commission - and many people in Beijing - wants the streets to be wider and cleaner. With this in mind, it introduced a regulation in summer last year banning all 352 newsstands in the downtown districts of Dongcheng and Xicheng from selling food and drinks. Three stands were closed for selling food illegally.

Since then, many stands in the two districts have closed because most of their business came from food and drinks, while sales of newspapers and magazines were highly unprofitable.

There are 1,186 newsstands in the city, of which 306 - that are not in the two districts - are licensed to sell food and drinks.

The closure of stands has attracted public attention, with many people, especially the elderly, strongly opposed to administrative intervention, as they have happy memories of visiting them.

Some people raised the idea of introducing newspaper vending machines, which are clean and convenient, but China Post Group is unwilling to pay for them as it believes they would be too costly to set up and they would not make a profit, according to an industry insider who declined to be named.

The official with the commission said: "The new policy has considered all aspects, and attempts to solve problems. We put the public interest first. The city will not keep a newsstand running for just a few people. Also, we won't remove a stand that has a good turnover. It all depends on the market and needs."

Generally, newsstands will be closer to their customers after they are moved to residential communities or become part of convenience stores. The government will make those that remain more attractive, the official said.

Newsstands may be facing pressures now, but they have had their good days.

Yang Na, who is in her 50s and comes from Hebei province, started running a stand in Beijing in 1998. In 2002, she bought her first apartment in the capital for 400,000 yuan - money she made from selling newspapers and magazines.

Before the internet became widely available, and with Beijing being the country's cultural and political center, most people liked to get their news from newspapers and television bulletins.

In 1997, the Beijing municipal government made setting up newsstands a city-level project and approved 75 stands that year.

In 1999, the city began setting up newsstands on a large scale. Two years later, the authorities decided to regulate the stands through an overall planning, management and supply channel.

The peak year was 2008, when the city had 2,500 newsstands, more than twice the number now.

At that time, Yang's stand only sold newspapers and magazines. Her profit was about 7,000 yuan a month. Ten years later, she makes almost the same amount with the help of food and drink sales.

"I miss the days in 2007 when I sold several boxes of fashion magazines each day," she said.


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