Price registration cannot be ignored

photo:nhatnhitran.com.vn

According to a Ministry of Finance (MoF) investigation conducted last November, four out of 16 inspected enterprises failed to register prices.

They were sugar producers Khanh Hoa Sugar Joint Stock Company, Nghe An Tate &Lyle Cane Sugar Limited Company, Lam Son Cane Sugar Joint Stock Company and fertiliser trading enterprise Ha Anh Import Export Joint Stock Company.

The other twelve, including two foreign-invested enterprises Friesland Campina Limited Company and Tay Ninh Bourbon Joint Stock Company, registered prices as regulated.

“The violators had to pay fines of VND7 million for each violation,” said the MoF’s Price Management Department head Nguyen Tien Thoa.

The investigation was carried out in northern, central and southern regions in accordance with the government’s request to prevent prices from escalating and curbing inflation this year.

The 16 inspected enterprises must register their prices under Circular 122/2010/TT-BTC on price stabilisation which took effect from October 1, 2010.

Accordingly, 150 companies will have to register prices when they launch new products.

However, a MoF representative said the reason for the enterprises’ price registration violations was the rapidly fluctuating market.

“Some of them did not know that they will have to register prices because these enterprises have not updated legal documents in time,” said the representative.

Thoa said from October 1, 2010, 49 enterprises had sent their price registration to the MoF and 30 companies had proposed to adjust their selling prices.

For example, he said, while gas traders registered to decrease gas prices, urea fertiliser trading firms proposed to increase prices to make profit.

“After checking input costs and other factors, we saw there were no reasons to raise fertiliser prices. Therefore, the MoF decided not to allow these trading firms to hike their selling prices,” said Thoa.

He said during the first stage of investigation, the MoF did not excavated the situation of keeping goods to push up prices unreasonably.

According to the inspection result, many violations on price were penalised by the local departments of taxation.

Specifically, 13 cases in Lam Dong province were fined VND420 million ($21,538), 279 cases in Ho Chi Minh City with VND1.2 billion ($61,538), 4 cases in Tien Giang with VND26 million ($1,333) regarding to enterprises trading in milk, medicine and construction materials.