Shanghai Knockoffs Get Knocked Off

by Nicole Weston (RSS feed)
Jul 1st 2006 at 10:04AM

Shanghai's most famous street market, Xiangyang Road Fashion and Gift Market, was shut down this week. The market was famous for its cheap, designer knock-offs and was hugely popular with locals, as well as tourists for many years. More recently, the government began to crack-down on forgeries on behalf of the foreign investors and businesses that they were trying to attract to the country, and the market crowds dwindled somewhat. Immediately after the close, some vendors moved to neighboring buildings and streets, but the area will never be the same again. The Chinese government plans to redevelop the area to have a metro line and, possibly, ultimately turn it into a residential sector instead of a commercial one.