Adil Abdurrahman Al Mannai (centre), Head of the Trade and Research Committee at Qatar Chamber, with owners and representatives of major shopping malls in a meeting at the headquarters of Qatar Chamber.
Major shopping malls are planning to increase parking fees to stop misuse of their parking lots by some motorists especially those visiting the neighbouring buildings leaving their cars for long hours.
The issue was raised in a meeting of the Trade and Research Committee at Qatar Chamber (QC) with some owners and representatives of major shopping malls in line with a decision of Qatar Chamber taken recently to set up a committee for malls and shopping complexes.
The panel discussed many issues related to the shopping malls including pay parking charges, partitioning inside the facility and electricity bills, said a QC statement yesterday.
The parking fees announced by the Ministry of Economy and Commerce for visitors of shopping complexes are nominal, argued the panelists.
The low fee encourages some motorists to park their cars at the parking areas of shopping complexes for long hours and go out of the malls and return after the facility was closed down. This is not good also from the security point of view, said the participants.
It was proposed to impose parking charges for the first two hours as per instructions of the Ministry and after that the management of shopping malls should be allowed to charge extra for the remaining hours.
Regarding partitioning inside shops and malls, the panelists said that the Ministry of Municipality and Environment has made its approval mandatory for making any changes inside the facilities over more than 150 sqm.
The panelists demanded that management of malls should be allowed to make any partitioning without taking prior permission from the Ministry of Municipality and Environment and Civil Defence unless it was not made in the passage, corridor and outer portions of the facility.
They also demanded revising the electricity bill and put nominal prices for them.
The meeting was chaired by Adil Abdurrahman Al Mannai, Head of the Trade and Research Committee at Qatar Chamber. A representative from Qatar Tourism Authority was also present.
