As the new fish market opened in the facility at Umm Salai, several customers have to drive 30km to stock up their fish from their preferred vendors. Several of the customers were pleasantly surprised to see the very competitive prices of the fresh fish available. As cited in Peninsula a number of customers were stressed that they were not able to find any option to the old central market at Abu Hamour that was recently closed.
The business at the new fish market is picking up the pace as the sales are hovering around an average of QR2000 daily per vendor, somehow the vendors still are concerned about their business as it is not running at the new facility as expected. One of the vendor said that in the old market sales were around QR7,000 daily reaching upto QR10,000 on weekends, he added that with time the demand will increase as more customers get aware of the new facility.
Few vendors were concerned about the accommodation and food as the new facility doesn’t have the housing facility and the vendors need to travel all the way from Doha that results in higher travel expenses, also the food is to be ordered from outside as the new market does not have a proper restaurant currently.
This new market also have other business running like outlets for fruits and vegetables, live chicken shops and slaughterhouse for fresh meat, it also houses a nursery that offers decorative plants and other equipments and fertiliser for home gardening.
Abattoir is not yet open and live chicken shops are not allowed to house live chickens due to some technical problems, so the vendors are selling frozen chicken right now that again adds to the lower sales. But the vendors are optimistic that in near future they will be able to house live chicken and the sales will sore.
Customers said that fish prices are very low here like Safi fish is available at QR12 per kg while the difference in the prices of fruits and vegetables is not much as compared to the other markets.
