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Hong Kong Budget 2015-2016
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Food vans - like those featured in last year's Hollywood film Chef - may be cruising the streets of Hong Kong. Photo: Fast Company Co.Create

Hong Kong hawkers find finance chief’s food truck plan unappetising

Financial Secretary John Tsang Chun-wah’s plan to introduce food trucks to Hong Kong was unappetising, hawkers said, after the idea was wheeled out in the budget speech yesterday.

Financial Secretary John Tsang Chun-wah’s plan to introduce food trucks to Hong Kong was unappetising, hawkers said, after the idea was wheeled out in the budget speech yesterday.

Tsang said that he had “asked relevant departments ... to consider introducing food trucks, which are popular abroad, to the mix of Hong Kong’s existing food scene”, seeing it as a good attraction for tourists too.

But itinerant hawkers like fruit seller Chan Kai-tai said the idea would hit a roadblock.

“Hong Kong’s roads are too small to accommodate the trucks,” Chan, who works in Yuen Long, said. “I mean, it’ll work if the van is parked on a country park road in Lau Fau Shan or somewhere, but then who would go so far to buy food? It’s not really going to happen.”

Chan added that food trucks would be expensive to set up and maintain and therefore out of financial reach for hawkers. He said he would not consider applying for a food truck licence.

If we are talking about fried chicken or fries, why do it in Hong Kong?
Victor Chan

Another hawker, Fa Yuen Street-based Chan Kong-chiu, said Tsang’s plan would only benefit big companies able to afford the start-up costs.

“Will it work? And will it really benefit Hongkongers like us who’ve been asking for a long time for more possibilities in hawking? I think this will just end up helping the chain restaurants or big companies as a marketing ploy,” he said. “We may never see those licences. They may be all snapped up by the big guys.”

He said that it would be impossible to introduce food trucks under current hawker laws, adding that it would be “unfair” if the vans didn’t fall under the same rules because hawkers have for decades campaigned for cooked-food licences, something the government has been phasing out since the 1970s.

“I don’t think [the government] has thought this through at all: the food and hygiene laws it involves, the transportation and traffic laws and so on,” he said.

Yeung Wai-sing, chairman of the Association for Hong Kong Catering Services Management, was also sceptical, suggesting that the trucks could provide unfair competition for restaurants which have to pay high rents for their premises.

Hong Kong Hotels Association chairman Victor Chan Kok-wai said he found Tsang’s idea interesting. He stressed that finding a good location would be a key factor for success, citing the Tourism Board’s annual wine festival, which was relocated to opposite the Kai Tak Cruise Terminal from the Central piers during Occupy protests last year.

“Wine and Dine Festival worked well in Kai Tak. There must be a certain scale to an outdoor project … and good transportation connections to the site,” he said.

While Tsang did not elaborate on what type of food the trucks would serve, Victor Chan voted for local flavours: “Only local elements would make it fun. If we are talking about fried chicken or fries, why do it in Hong Kong?”

Brenda Cheng So-ngor, chairwoman of the Tung Choi Street (Ladies’ Market) Merchants and Hawkers Association, welcomed the plan, saying it was similar to ideas brainstormed by hawkers themselves.

“But the government will need to think of subsidising the set up, and put in money to develop the concept,” she said.

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