Shafaq News- Basra

Rising rents, taxes and import costs are pushing shopkeepers in Basra's eight-decade-old Friday Market out of their stores and onto street stalls, as vendors press authorities for a covered market that would end the weekly closure of a main city road.

The market has operated in the old quarter of Iraq's main southern port city since the 1940s. It once specialized in rare collectibles and the antique household items of old Basra, according to Hajj Abdul Hussein al-Muzaffar, one of its longest-serving vendors. Today, its stalls are stocked mostly with everyday consumer goods and imported electronics.

Al-Muzaffar told Shafaq News that swings in the dollar exchange rate and higher prices at the source have hit traders and low-income buyers directly. For some shop owners, the cost of keeping a store has become too much. Rent and taxes have driven them to give up their premises and sell from stalls, where overheads are lower.

The pressure comes as Iraq devalued the dinar on Oct. 7, raising the official selling price of the dollar to 1,520 dinars from 1,320, a move that increases the local-currency cost of imports.

The market's informal setup brings costs of its own. Every week, vendors take over both sides of a main road in the old city from late at night until midday, according to vendor Qasim al-Basri. The closure sometimes disrupts traffic on one of the province's key routes, he said.

Stallholders want local and federal authorities to build a single covered market under the Friday Market name, with electricity and basic services. Al-Basri said such a site would give vendors a stable place to trade, ease congestion and keep alive a market that is part of Basra's commercial and social heritage.