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The death of a 1980s-1990s icon in Singapore?
Growing up in the 1990s, Econ Minimarts were a common sight — you could virtually find an Econ Minimart outlet around the corner in your own or nearby neighbourhood. These were small to mid-sized mini supermarkets with lots of daily necessity items such as rice, drinks and snacks — very convenient and accessible.
I even recalled that the parents of one of the juniors from my school bus group in primary school ran an Econ Minimart in the Lorong Lew Lian estate, which was about a ten minute walk from my parents’ place. At its peak in the 1990s, there were probably around 200 Econ Minimarts (see featured image) across the entire island.
According to a speech by then Minister For Community Development and Second Minister for Foreign Affairs, Wong Kan Seng dated 3 January 1988, there were “130 outlets trading successfully under the (Econ Minimart) banner.” He added that “Econ Minimart is one example where through modernisation, the demand for workers has decreased and productivity has increased”.
However, by 2010, there were less than 100 outlets and the number of iEcon minimarts fell to 29 in May 2016, based on a report by The New Paper (TNP). iEcon minimart is presumably the updated entity of Econ Minimart but they ceased operations in May 2017. Subsequently, New Econ…
