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City expects success with price controls
Goods sold under the price-stabilisation programme are expected to meet consumer demand in HCM City this year, according to the municipal People's Committee.
After four months of implementation, this year's price-stabilisation programme had been going well amid high inflation and increasing prices of input materials, said the deputy chairwoman of the HCM City People's Committee, Nguyen Thi Hong, at a meeting to review this year's programme on Friday.
Providers committed to ensure an adequate supply for the market, especially for Tet (Lunar New Year), Hong said during a meeting with the Vice Minister of Industry and Trade (MoIT) Ho Thi Kim Thoa.
The two officials discussed the expansion of the distribution network of the programme, which began this year in April with nine essential items.
Since that time, the volume of products has risen between 14-41 per cent compared to the same period when the programme was in effect last year.
The number of businesses participating in the programme has also increased to 22 from last year's 14.
More than VND437 billion (US$21.2 million) has been invested in the programme to help participating businesses ensure supplies, according to Hong. However, a number of them are investing their own money.
The People's Committee deputy head said prices under the stabilisation programme would remain at least 10 per cent cheaper than market prices, a commitment that providers must make to participate in the programme.
An adequate supply of goods would also offset any price hikes in the market, Sai Gon Giai Phong (Liberated Sai Gon) quoted Hong as saying.
"Having a secure supply is the most important factor in the programme's success," Van Duc Muoi, the general director of Vissan Limited Company, said at the meeting.
Pork is among the essential food and foodstuffs chosen for the stabilisation programme, and Vissan, which has 600 agents in HCM City and provinces nationwide, is a key supplier for the programme.
The company began stocking pork products in June to make sure it would have enough supply during Tet, Muoi said, explaining that the early storage was done because pork prices increased seven times this year.
Unstable food and consumer prices had become more common in the past few years, especially near the end of the lunar year amid high inflation.
The Vissan leader said the company was planning to store more than 4,000 tonnes per month for Tet, 10,000 tonnes more than its assigned monthly storage.
The vice director of the HCM City's biggest supermarket chain, Sai Gon Co.op, Bui Hanh Thu said that supply sources were key to the company's back-to-back 40 per cent increase in revenue.
Sai Gon Co.op has stored around 20,000 tonnes of goods for the stabilisation programme this year, at least three times what the corporation was assigned.
One of the key tasks to improve the programme and make it more popular is expansion of the distribution network for the goods in industrial parks (IPs), export processing zones (EPZs) and suburban areas.
Can Gio, the most distant district in HCM City, saw five more stabilised-goods distribution shops open last month, according to the People's Committee.
The city has appointed State-run businesses to spearhead the development of the distribution network so that private enterprises will be encouraged to join.
The number of stabilised-goods shops and distribution agencies has leapfrogged in the last three years. There have been more than 2,770 shops, compared to 248 in 2008.
The introduction of these goods in traditional markets, co-operatives, student boarding schools and mobile shops in suburbs, as well as IPs and EPZs, have been developed on a large scale.
"The HCM City stabilisation programme has become a national one following its success," Thoa, the MoIT vice minister, said.
The Government has entrusted the MoIT to improve the HCM City price – stabilisation programme so that it will be responsive to price hikes and continue to have a sufficient volume of storage to meet demand, according to Thoa.
The success of HCM City programme was due to the transparent criteria used for its implementation, and the appropriate selection of goods for essential products and businesses.
Other essential goods, including medicine, milk powder and students' school supplies, are also included in the programme.
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