The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) plans to relocate street vendors in a project modelled on Singapore.

The ever-increasing numbers of street vendors have prompted City Hall to come up with measures to regulate them; yet many hawkers still occupy pavements.

Some city officials have also been accused of receiving kickbacks from vendors in exchange for allowing them to sell on pavements.

According to the BMA, in 2011 there were a total of 773 locations where trading was permitted on footpaths temporarily.

The number has now been reduced to 171.

When Chadchart Sittipunt assumed the Bangkok governorship about two months ago, he vowed to tackle unregulated vending on pavements with the management of hawker centres in Singapore as a model.

Kessara Thanyalakpark, the governor's adviser, told the Bangkok Post that Singapore's creation of special centres for hawkers to sell their wares serves as the ideal model for regulating footpath vending in Bangkok.

"Other countries may also be trying to tackle this problem in a similar fashion to Singapore. But instead of calling them hawker centres, they may use different words, such as food courts or street food," Ms Kessara said.

She said the team will devise a set of criteria for locations where off-street premises for relocated vendors will be constructed.

These are expected to be finalised by the end of this year.

Initially, more than 100 locations have been considered suitable, Ms Kessara said.

"After the selection criteria are finished, City Hall will meet vendors and land owners for further talks," she said.

"We've thought of some tentative criteria. For example, vendors would be required to earn no more than 360,000 baht per year or about 30,000 baht per month to qualify. They would also be required to comply with cleanliness regulations."