LETTER TO SCMP:
Alex Lo is so right. What on earth is the government doing running our equivalent of the Great Hong Kong Foodcart Challenge? (How bureaucracy helps mow down entrepreneurship, August 3) [1]
The government should be setting the rules, not trying to pick winners.
This Foodcart fiasco exemplifies all that's wrong with our government now: pinched visions, bureaucratic implementation.
As your article of 18 May suggests, the government should have followed London's example: clear, simple rules, easy application and no limit on the number. (London's diverse food-truck scene a lesson to Hong Kong, May 18) [2]
With so few food-trucks to operate here, they cannot become a tourist draw. In the meantime tourists do like what is left of "old Hong Kong", street stalls, Dai Pai Dong and the like. On those, the government would do well to follow the ancient Chinese philosophy of Wu Wei: that is "do nothing", rather than closing them down in a misguided attempt to clean us up like the antiseptic Singapore.
