Businesses scramble to prepare for power cuts

As the summer and with it, periodical power cuts, are drawing near, businesses throughout Ho Chi Minh City are rushing to buy electricity generators, reschedule production plans, and even lay off workers.

Nguyen Phuong Thao, President of Thien Thao Garment Company in Tan Binh District, said she was looking for electricity generators since she had heard power cuts this year would even be more frequent than last year.

“Using electricity generators would push input costs much higher,” Thao said. “But there is no other way out.”

Last year, many businesses opted to rent generators. But given early warnings about a possible severe shortage of power countrywide this summer, many now have to buy them.

Duong Thai Son, President of Nam Long Paper Packaging Company in the southern province of Binh Duong, said his company had spent 100 million dong to buy generators.

As power cuts have occurred as frequently as twice a week recently, his company simply couldn’t shut down production whenever electricity goes out.

Trang, a supervisor of the dyeing unit at a company in Le Minh Xuan Small Industry and Handicrafts Zone in Binh Chanh District, said Binh Chanh Electricity Company had informed her company that it would have to cut power as often as four times every month for maintenance.

“You don’t have to cut power four times every month just for maintenance,” Trang said with skepticism.

Nguyen Thanh Long, Director of Binh Chanh Electrics said his company was indeed cutting power for maintenance and total power cuts were still within the maximum 5-hour-per-day limit that the Electricity of Vietnam Corporation (EVN)’s HCM City branch had promised the public.

However, what EVN-HCM City promised in a recent press conference was a maximum of 5 hours per day plus only two cuts per month.

So while EVN is struggling to provide as much electricity to the country as it can, businesses are finding ways to minimize the costs of power cuts on their own.

To Vo Truong Thanh, President of Truong Thanh Wood Industry Corporation in Binh Duong, buying generators isn’t an option.

It would cost his company 10 billion dong to buy enough generators to power all of its factories, which now employ 6,000 workers. “What with high loan interest rates and gas prices, this isn’t an option.”

So he has to choose the lesser of two devils: lay off workers. Truong Thanh is also trying to improve its production management and marketing strategies as well as looking for more profitable markets all in an effort to cut costs and avoid losses.

At rubber producer Casumina Dong Nai Factory at the Dong Nai Industrial Zone, Bui Tho Luu Hien, the company’s president, said his employees were now only working for 5-and-a-half days, instead of 7 days, per week because of power cuts.

Other companies throughout Dong Nai are less lucky. They had been informed they could only work for 4 days a week.

“We had to beg very hard for 5-and-a-half days a week,” Hien said.

To make the most of its working days, Casumina is now asking its employees to avoid taking days off and increase shifts.

Production workers at Casumina are working on Sundays these days, since power cuts occur on Mondays, when those who don’t work in production are encouraged to go to work.

Those who want to take days off in an emergency are required to inform the company at least one week in advance so that it can schedule replacements to ensure production capacity. – Tuoitre

Tags: Vietnam electricity, Vietnam energy, Vietnam power shortage