City orders stricter price monitoring
The HCM City People's Committee has ordered districts and relevant agencies to step up monitoring prices of essential goods until the end of March 2011.
All violations regarding pricing including speculative activities will be strictly penalised, it said in a report published on its website last week.
The move aims to stabilise prices of essential goods as the most important holiday season of the year related to the Tet (The Lunar New Year) festival approaches.
The holiday falls early next February.
The committee has asked the city's Finance Department to enumerate prices of essential goods by instructing producers and distributors to register them.
The city's Market Watch Department has been told to draw out plans to inspect the market before, during and after Tet with a focus on preventing trade in counterfeit, low quality, expired goods, as well as those that do not meet food hygiene and safety standards.
District administrations should promptly implement the Government's price management plan and take measures to stabilise the market in their respective localities, the committee said.
It said district authorities will be responsible for price monitoring and management at traditional markets including imposing strict penalties on violators.
On Monday, an interdisciplinary inspection team led by the city's Finance Department visited outlets of 14 manufacturers and distributors who've agreed to participate in the city's price stabilisation programme.
They also inspected establishments manufacturing and trading in steel, fertilisers, milk and construction materials.
According to a department report submitted to the municipal government, in the first 10 months, the inspection team discovered 329 violations price violations and imposed fines of more than VND1.1 billion.
Nguyen Quoc Chien, head of the Pricing Office under the Finance Department, said they also checked price registration among enterprises producing and trading in essential goods like milk, steel, cement and gas.
The department has sent official documents to 105 businesses directing them to list and register their prices, he said, adding they would verify this and order adjustments where needed.
Beside pecuniary penalties, the inspection team may revoke business permits from intentional violators, Chien said.
So far, some 30 businesses have sent their lists and registration documents to the department, he added.
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