The Malta Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry has added its voice to the chorus of disapproval over the planned relocation of the Valletta open air market – adding its concern over the hawkers at the entrance to the capital city.

The chamber expressed “its utmost dismay” at plans to allow the market to extend to Pjazza Teatru Rjal and the new Parliament building.

“The country has invested more than €100 million in a world-class building that, although still not completed, has already drawn the attention of the international architecture community. The Renzo Piano project has already featured prominently in prestigious publications and is held in extremely high regard in the world’s architecture circles.

“The Parliament building in itself will add to the country’s national pride for all Maltese as it symbolises an ambitious Malta of the 21st century.

“The chamber appeals to government to protect this investment and safeguard it from the deterioration in value and status which the relocation of an open air market will inevitably bring with it.”

The chamber said the open air market should be limited to the stretch in Ordinance Street between Republic Street and Embassy of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, adding another pointed caveat: “if relocated at all”.

At the same time, the chamber strongly deplored the state of affairs at the new entrance to Malta’s capital, saying “a handful of hawkers seem to have been given the sacrosanct right to block Valletta’s new entrance with shabby stalls and kiosks. This is certainly not in line with the image which the Renzo Piano entrance is intended to project”.

The chamber urged for the ‘everything goes’ mentality to be ditched in favour of a quantum leap of quality.

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