As announced in mid-April, “YCDC is going to seize billboards operated by private companies after March 31”, a spokesperson for YCDC’s Department of Administration said.
The March 31 YCDC announcement said billboard leases that had been authorized in the 2012-13 financial year, which ended March 31, would not be renewed in the following financial year. However, YCDC will continue to allow billboards under its control.
However, the March 2013 announcement said companies would need to apply to the Department of Administration – and inferred that only one size (45 feet by 15 feet) would be allowed. Billboards cost up to K20,000 a square foot and the cost to change the design is at least K50,000, U Aung Kyaw Oo said.
In August last year, YCDC announced that it would standardize billboard sizing in Yangon to clean up the streets. At first it announced that there would only be three sizes of billboards across the city.
“YCDC announced that if businesses want to advertise their products on billboards legally they would have to work with YCDC,” he said. “We also heard that YCDC will seize billboards that were not in compliance with its order. But we really don’t know what’s going on – all we know is that we can’t accept new orders and just have to wait and see what happens,” he said.
U Aung Kyaw Oo, the managing director of Idea digital inkjet printing and signs, said YCDC’s announcement left advertising companies that specialized in billboards completely in the dark about their futures.
Original Link Myanmar Times