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Unreasonable price hikes probed
The Price Management Department is undertaking a nationwide audit of prices to curb unreasonable hikes, Director of the department Nguyen Tien Thoa has said.
Thoa said that the inspection would mainly focus on steel, cement, animal feed, dairy products, medicine and transport, whose prices had sharply risen.
Inspections began late last month and the results would be released this month, said Thoa.
The department expected that the assessment on the impacts of increasing input costs in the wake of price hikes in petrol, electricity and the recent devaluation of the dong against the dollar would help management authorities closely supervise rising business input cost, deterring them from unjustified price rises.
Rising input costs had certainly had a negative impact on many businesses, but not all of them, according to the department, adding that the inspection would clarify the effect on the rises.
After the Ministry of Finance's decision on March 29 to raise retail fuel prices by VND2,000-2,800 a litre, foodstuff retailers in Ha Noi's markets have raised prices of their commodities and services by 5-15 per cent. However, industry insiders estimated the rises were unreasonable given that wholesale prices had remained unchanged.
A pork retailer at the Nhat Tan Market said that she had increased the price of pork by VND5-10,000 per kilo because of the rising cost of freight.
However, Nguyen Thi Khanh, a pork breeder in the Thach That District's, Dai Dong Commune on the outskirts of the capital, said that the current pork retail prices were too high as transportation costs had registered only marginal increases.
Public transport companies yesterday also raised fares by 10-20 per cent, attributing it to the petrol price hike last month.
The price increase was announced by Nguyen Hoang Trung, Director of the Ha Noi Station Management Company, the governing body of the capital's transport industry.
Trung said his company had approved proposals to raise prices by the Yen Bai Road and Waterway Transport Joint Stock Company and the Ha Noi Transport Service Joint Stock Company.
The approval would initiate a fare hike among many other transport firms, said Trung, adding that many companies said they were also scrutinising their business performance plans to call for permission to raise their fares.
Following a price hike of 17-24 per cent on petrol and diesel late February and another of 10-15 per cent on March 29, a litre of A92 petrol now costs VND21,300 and diesel has gone up to VND21,100 a litre.
Trung said that the fuel hike had forced transport firms to increase tariffs, but management authorities would try to prevent the firms from raising fares unreasonably.
"Transport firms will have to show their fare hikes have been approved by the relevant authorities," Trung said, adding that station management agencies would closely supervise the rises.
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