Updated: 18th March 2009, 1805 hrs
Four organisations unite to fight for retailers against rising rents
Four organisations are banding together to help their members fight rising rental costs.
The four are the Singapore Retailers Association, Restaurant Association, Singapore Jewellers Association and Textile and Fashion Federation.
In a joint statement issued today, the four say they reached the agreement following a meeting last Friday.
Given the current downturn, they say shop closures together with staff retrenchments are something they've had to face.
Occupancy costs are their members' biggest burden.
Even after repeated pleas for landlords to offer rental rebates, these have gone unheeded.
Some landlords have even proposed rental increases.
As such, the four bodies have decided that they will unite to 'engage and seek partnerships with landlords' so as to avoid shop closures and preserve jobs.
A first step is information sharing among members of the organisations.
Mr David Wang, Vice President of the Textile and Fashion Federation.
"For example if I'm in the shopping mall, I've maybe next to me maybe a jewellery shop and my other immediate neighbour may be one of the FJ Benjamin that brings in Topshop. We don't know what kind of rental each other are paying, so the fact that now we're coming together, the first step is to share the information at least we know are the landlords charging us fairly for the space? Sometimes they tend to play games with all the retailers by telling you Oh I'm only charging this brand so and so and charging you a special price so we want to remove all that doubt. "
Four organisations unite to fight for retailers against rising rents
Four organisations are banding together to help their members fight rising rental costs.
The four are the Singapore Retailers Association, Restaurant Association, Singapore Jewellers Association and Textile and Fashion Federation.
In a joint statement issued today, the four say they reached the agreement following a meeting last Friday.
Given the current downturn, they say shop closures together with staff retrenchments are something they've had to face.
Occupancy costs are their members' biggest burden.
Even after repeated pleas for landlords to offer rental rebates, these have gone unheeded.
Some landlords have even proposed rental increases.
As such, the four bodies have decided that they will unite to 'engage and seek partnerships with landlords' so as to avoid shop closures and preserve jobs.
A first step is information sharing among members of the organisations.
Mr David Wang, Vice President of the Textile and Fashion Federation.
"For example if I'm in the shopping mall, I've maybe next to me maybe a jewellery shop and my other immediate neighbour may be one of the FJ Benjamin that brings in Topshop. We don't know what kind of rental each other are paying, so the fact that now we're coming together, the first step is to share the information at least we know are the landlords charging us fairly for the space? Sometimes they tend to play games with all the retailers by telling you Oh I'm only charging this brand so and so and charging you a special price so we want to remove all that doubt. "
