Price-stabilisation scheme picks up

Customers buy pork in Co-op Mart Supermarket in District 3 in HCM City. Authorities said there were sufficient essential goods to meet demands for Lunar New Year.

According to the HCM City Department of Trade and Industry, most companies participating in the city programme have stored large volumes of essential goods, three to four times higher than the figures asked for the Tet period.

The price of eight essential goods, including rice, sugar, cooking oil, poultry and domestic cattle meat, eggs, processed food and vegetables, will remain stable until the end of March 2011.

Le Ngoc Dao, deputy director of HCM City Department of Trade and Industry, said a number of new participants in the programme had declined to receive a non-interest loan, but were committed to supply sufficient and quality goods for the programme until the end of March.

On December 4, Phu Cuong Co. will sign a contract to supply supermarkets and shops under Co.opMart, Maximart, Satramart and Sargi with 125 tonnes of seafood per month.

With this contract, seafood becomes the ninth group of essential goods under the city's price stabilisation programme.

Despite HCM City's high demand for consumer goods, the programme has helped keep the city's Consumer Price Index growth rate lower than the country's average rate.

However, the volume of goods supplied for the programme represents only 25 per cent to 30 per cent of consumption in the city's markets, and from 30 to 40 per cent during the Tet holiday.

Although the non-interest loans for the programme in 2010 and the Tet were low, a total of VND400 billion ($19 million), it has been used effectively, said the deputy chairwoman of HCM City People's Committee, Nguyen Thi Hong.

According to Bui Hanh Thu, deputy general director of Sai Gon Co-op, some VND1,200 billion ($57 million) has been earmarked at her supermarket chain for Tet goods, including VND400 billion for essential goods under the price stabilisation programme.

She added that Sai Gon Co-op received only VND100 billion in non-interest loans from the programme.

More shops join programme

Many customers have complained that goods under the price stabilisation programme cannot be found in traditional markets.

To give workers and residents in suburban areas access to these essential goods, Dao said the Department of Trade and Industry had asked authorities at industrial parks and export processing zones to set up dates and venues for the sale of these goods.

District authorities were also asked to open stalls and outlets at traditional markets for essential goods that are part of the programme.

The HCM City People Committee has assigned the Department of Trade and Industry to build and expand a distribution network for goods under the programme, focusing on IPs, EPZs and residential areas in suburban areas.

Under this plan, some 100 stalls and outlets will be added to the existing 1,980 stalls selling goods under the programme by the end of January.

Deputy chairwoman Hong said the major conditions for programme eligibility were companies' production capacity and the ability to expand their distribution networks for the essential goods.