Merchants unconcerned about toxicity of profitable goods

Smuggled jewelry, fabric and clothes have been seized repeatedly in recent days. The products have been sold everywhere despite news of toxic products and high profits has made small merchants choose to ignore the dangers.

One dong in capital brings four in profit

An Dong and Hoa Binh are well known as places selling diverse jewelry items. There are tens of kiosks that sell jewelry like bracelets, earrings and rings, both wholesale and retail.

Some owners at Hoa Binh Market estimate that there are hundreds of thousands of items available, most imported from China.

“All the jewelry kiosks here sell China-sourced jewelry products, especially bracelets and necklaces, simply because of the ‘soft prices’,” confirmed Thuy, a jewelry seller at An Dong Market.

Thuy admitted that all the goods available here are smuggled with no vouchers.

While buyers love Chinese jewelry, sellers also like the products because of the low input price that allows sellers to make fat profits.

A bracelet, for example, which retails at 50,000 dong, has an input price of 20,000 dong. Similarly, retailers just buy a set of necklaces at 230,000 dong to sell for 450,000 dong. A necklace priced at 250,000 dong actually costs merchants just 80,000 dong.

According to the management of a big market, most jewelry products are contraband items that, as newspapers recently reported, contain toxins. However, the management board complains that is can only ask merchants market not to sell such goods. As profits are often hefty (the retail price could be triple the cost), they continue selling dangerous items.

Most fabrics and clothes at markets are goods smuggled from China.

According to Tuoi Tre newspaper, most cost very little. For example, a T-shirt costs just 30,000 dong, while retailers can sell it for 100,000-120,000 dong. Skirts cost 150,000 dong, but retail for 450,000 dong.

The enormous gap between the cost and the retail price is really attractive to retailers. In fact, even big fashion shops sell smuggled goods for this reason

Imposing fines don’t help

When asked why small merchants are still selling contraband goods, even though the State has confiscated a lot of goods and imposed fines, an official of the HCM City Market Control Sub-department responded that the fine is not heavy enough.

Sellers whose goods have been seized by the Market Control Sub-department were fined only 750,000-2.5 million dong, even though the products were found to contain dangerous toxic elements like lead and cadmium.

VietNamNet/Tuoi tre

Tags: Vietnam goods, Vietnam markets