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Heavier punishment still cannot stop price posting in dollars
A lot of hotels, restaurants and travel firms were found yesterday as still posting prices and service fees in dollars, even though a new legal document has taken effect which says that those who post sale prices in foreign currencies will be imposed the fines of up to 500 million dong.
A hotel on Dong Khoi Street in district 1 in HCM City on October 28 still quoted its hotel room rate in both dong and dollars. The price quotation could be seen on the board put in front of the hotel.
The manager of the hotel said that as the hotel has a lot of foreign customers, it has to post service fees in both dong and dollars. Meanwhile, the board of management of the hotel said it did not hear about the decree 95 which imposes heavy fines on the behavior of posting prices in foreign currencies.
“We do not know that we are violating the laws. We promise to remove the price quotations in dollars and we will quote prices in dong,” the manager said.
On Le Thanh Ton street, a restaurant showed a board where visitors could see the prices posted in dollars. The restaurant’s manager also said that he did not hear about the new legal document stipulating the punishment on the behavior of posting prices in dollars.
“We have been posting prices in dollars for a long time, and no management agency has imposed fine on us. I do not know anything about the decree 95,” he said.
Not only restaurants and hotels, but shipping agents still have been quoting charges and fees in dollars. The representative office of APL Company on October 28 still provided price quotations in dollars. If customers choose to make payment in dong, the two parties will apply the exchange rate of 20,996 dong per dollar – the rate quoted by Vietcombank on October 28.
On websites, one still could see the ad pieces on real estate sale with the prices posted in dollars. Hung, a real estate broker, said that both sellers and buyers have got familiar to defining prices in dollars. However, buyers can pay in both dollar and dong.
For example, the rental of a room is 1000 dollar a month, and tenants can pay 1000 dollar in both dollars or dong with the exchange rate for reference is the rate announced by foreign currency exchange shops on Ha Trung Street. As such, if the dollar price is 21,500 dong per dollar, the tenant would have to pay 21.5 million dong.
Explaining the habit of quoting real estate prices in dollars, Hung said that the sellers define prices in dollars in order to protect them from the dollar price fluctuations. If they post prices in dong, they would suffer big losses when the dong depreciates.
However, VnExpress has reported that after the Decree 95 took effect, the price quotations in dollars have decreased. In the past, 90 percent of camera and hi-tech product sellers posted prices in dollars. Meanwhile, all of them now quote prices in dollars. Nguyen Kim, Idea, Phong Vu and some other big shopping malls such as Parkson or Vincom are now quoting prices in dong.
Ho Huu Hanh, Director of the HCM City Branch of the State Bank of Vietnam, said that the agency has been taking inspection tours to a lot of shops, restaurants and companies, but it has not found any violators
The HCM City Market Control Sub-department has affirmed that after the decree took effect, the sub-department has not discovered any violation case. However, it said that in the first 20 days of October, it discovered 8 cases of illegal price posting in dollars. In the third quarter of 2011, 12 cases were discovered by relevant agencies.
Nguyen Dac Loc, Deputy Head of the Hanoi Market Control Sub-department has affirmed the same situation. However, he said that it is now more difficult to discover the violations because sellers tend to use cunning to escape from the eyes of management agencies.
vietnamnet, VnExpress
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