A chengguan officer on patrol. Photo: CFP

In order to boost the street stall economy, chengguan (urban management officers) from Ruichang city in East China's Jiangxi Province are inviting street vendors to resume business and a video showing an invitation phone call between an officer and a vendor was viewed 7.17 million times and received over 74,000 likes and over 3,400 comments on Sina Weibo as of Wednesday evening. 

In the video, the invitation call turned out to be a huge surprise to the vendor who was invited do business at designated venues free of rent in the Datang New District in the city. 

"You are from the urban management [law enforcement department]? And you are asking me to do business?" In the video, the vendor's voice shows obvious disbelief at the beginning. 

The video was filmed on May 29 by the local government's publicity media center in order to inform more people of the new policy for street vendors. 

An official from the Ruichang Urban Management Bureau confirmed under the condition of anonymity with the Global Times on Wednesday that the city is piloting the practice of allowing street vendors do business at two designated venues in Datang New District and the authority will work out more detailed planning in the near future. 

The urban management officer named Ke Wen in the video told the media that the locations of the two venues had been carefully planned and would not affect the local traffic or pedestrians. His urban management department will patrol the venues every day to maintain order. 

At the moment, around 20 vendors do business at the two venues and most of them sell fruit and groceries. 

However, net users' opinions are divided on the new practice shown in the video. Some believe that it was just a publicity stunt and the vendors will be banned again soon. Others think that it is a general direction to introduce vendors into the cities and if street stalls are gathered and formed into night markets, it will be safer in terms of hygiene. Others think that as long as the vendors can maintain order, a city with street stalls has a more human touch. 

Global Times