The sale of vegetable wholesaler Perth Market Authority, which runs the popular Canning Vale Markets, has been welcomed by Western Australian fruit and vegetable growers.
On Thursday morning the state government announced plans to sell the authority as part of its sale of assets in the hope of recouping financial losses.
A condition of the sale will be that the markets must remain operating as markets.
Chamber of Fruit and Vegetable Industry of WA chief executive Martin Clark said the markets were "one of the last left in Australia that are run by government, they are moving to industry ownership".
More than $638 million worth of West Australian produce is traded at the markets each year as well as it being a base for tenants who also supply further produce to supermarkets throughout Australia.
In addition to the markets themselves, the authority has a further 12 hectares of land that is currently undeveloped.
Mr Clark said he was confident the market would remain where it was.
His only concern would be if a buyer wanted to create more of a shopping centre than a market.
"It's not a shopping centre, it is a market," he said.
Mr Clark said markets such as the one in Sydney which was privatised about 10 years ago had benefited from privatisation.
"It's fully tenanted, runs efficiently and people are happy to come to it," he said.
"If it wasn't doing things properly, people wouldn't use it."
Steve Mathews, spokesman for the Bell-Vista group which base part of its operations from Canning Vale, said he was confident about Canning Vale's future as a fresh produce market.
"I think that there will always be a Perth Market, whether they go private or give tenants the opportunity to buy," he said.
