ABOUT 170 shop owners at the Golden Sorya Mall in Phnom Penh’s Daun Penh district handed the mall’s owner a thumbprinted petition on Monday requesting a 50 percent reduction in their monthly rent, which they say is necessary because their businesses are running at a loss due to poor sales.

Clothes vendor Eang Soveoun said he was concerned that stores at the five-month-old mall could be forced to close because sales had been so bad.

“I have lost US$350 a month for three months already, especially because the rent is too high and I cannot sell goods at high enough prices to cover the rent of the stand,” he said on Monday.

Meas Channa, who sells clothes and shoes at the mall, said that although she and her fellow shop owners had been wiling to shoulder losses immediately after the mall opened, those losses have now become unsustainable.

“I would like to call for the owner of the market to decrease the price of the stands in accordance with the present, obvious situation, because our sales have not been good and there have not been many customers coming to buy goods here,” he said.

Un Hak Chiv, the mall’s owner, said Monday that he had already reduced rent rates by 25 percent, but added that he was willing to consider the new request.

“I will check and see. I will review the price for any vendor who comes to sell regularly,” he said, adding that vendors could increase the flow of customers to the mall by keeping their stores open on a regular basis.