Tension grows at Noryangjin fish market over new building

A merchant sells fish at her shop at the Noryangjin Fisheries Wholesale Market in southern Seoul, April 11, amid rising tensions between shop owners and the National Federation of Fisheries Cooperative over a relocation project. Many shop owners are refusing to move to a new building nearby, citing less space and higher rent. / Korea Times photo by Kim Se-jeong

By Kim Se-jeong

Seoul’s Noryangjin Fisheries Wholesale Market is on the verge of losing its charm and reputation as one of the city’s iconic places because shop owners have to move their premises to a new building as part of a relocation project.

But the merchants are at odds with the market operator over the project.

Many do not want to move to the new building nearby, completed last October to modernize the traditional market built 49 years ago.

The National Federation of Fisheries Cooperatives (NFFC), the manager of the nation’s biggest fish market, initiated the modernization project.

The market facilitates a daily trade in thousands of tons of fish and fish products. There are also 680 shops that attract visitors who want to get a feel and taste of Seoul’s urban life.

The shops were supposed to move to the new building, which opened in January, according to the NFFC. But only 200 moved and the other 480 insist that they want to stay where they are.

The merchants say the new shops are smaller and the rent two to three times higher.

“The NFFC is asking a lot more money for rent,” said Yu Ji-tae, a merchant who has run a dried fishery products shop for three decades. “Also, in the new building, I will be located on the second floor. For me, the second floor means my profits will be halved. I can’t accept that.”

But the NFFC said the merchants agreed to the conditions well before the building was completed.

“We had countless meetings with merchant representatives before and during the project and altered the plan to accommodate their demands,” Kim Duck-ho, an NFFC official, told The Korea Times. Kim showed a copy of an agreement on the rent and relocation, signed in July 2015, by a merchants’ representative, Lee Seung-ki. Lee was unavailable for comment.

“It’s out of the question that we would go ahead with a project like this without dialogue with the merchants,” Kim said, adding that the building cost more than 200 billion won.

Kim said the NFCC will push ahead with the original plan to destroy the old market building for the new project. “They are illegally occupying the place.”

With little room for compromise, conflicts are becoming violent. Earlier in April, one merchant allegedly threatened two NFFC employees with a knife, who sustained injuries to a thigh and shoulder. The merchant is in police custody.

On April 11, the NFFC began cutting electricity and seawater supplies to some shops, prompting tough resistance from shop owners. Some are continuing to operate by candlelight.

Shop owners have sued the NFFC for obstructing business.

The NFCC says it would consider terminating contracts with the recalcitrant shops and ban them in the new facility.

Kim said negotiations with the merchants are deadlocked because of a handful of merchant representatives, whose current shops are near the market’s entrances and make a lot of money. He said they are representing their personal interest, not the interests of the 480 shops.

“A tax record showed they make as much as 1.7 billion won per year,” he said.

Those who have moved to the new building also are not happy, because most customers still go to the old market, which has more shops and retains the image of a traditional market.

“What we want is dialogue,” Kim said. “We want to move forward.”