City firms start stocking cheap goods for Tet

HCM City businesses have kicked off the annual Tet price-stabilisation programme by stocking goods worth VND3.4 billion ($166,000), a city official said.

Nguyen Thi Hong, deputy chairman of the municipal People’s Committee, told a meeting with related departments that a similar programme started four months ago to keep day-to-day prices low, has worked, helping stabilise prices.

The stockpiling for the Lunar New Year – which falls in late January next year – represents an increase of 20 per cent compared to last year.

The goods include rice, cooking oil, and sugar, and the prices of the goods will be 10 per cent lower than comparable items on the market.

Hong instructed related departments to closely monitor market demand so that they could order market management teams to keep a close eye on prices everywhere in the city.

The city would also set up mobile sales outlets in industrial parks, export processing zones, and remote areas to bring the cheap goods to the doorsteps of workers and poor people.

According to the city Statistics Department, consumer prices rose 0.68 per cent this month, much lower than the 1.06 per cent in Ha Noi and 0.93 per cent for the country.

The programme has become an effective tool in controlling the city’s prices and stabilising the local economy, Hong added. — VNS