Il Guardian pubblica un articolo sull’aumento del numero dei venditori ambulanti, dopo che il primo ministro Li Keqiang ha lodato la capacità del settore di creare posti di lavoro, e che numerose autorità cittadine hanno dichiarato di adeguarsi alle direttive.

China’s street vendors were once seen as a symbol of the country’s burgeoning market economy in the 1980s and have been promoted at different times to deal with unemployment – such as in the 1990s during mass layoffs as state-owned companies were privatised. Experts say they play a key role in cities, providing employment for the lower-skilled population as well as a source for cheap food for poorer residents, many of them migrant workers.

La manovra del governo viene vista come un cambiamento solo temporaneo rispetto alla strategia complessiva di modernizzazione del paese.

“We see Chinese society under more and more control. Everything becomes stricter, and suddenly we see some space,” said Xu Jianhua, of the department of sociology, at the University of Macau who has researched street vending in Guangzhou. “I don’t think it’s really about so many people excited about vending. It’s an opportunity to see the relaxing of control.”

Immagine da Wikimedia.