Sold as Vietnamese but really made in China

Jams and dried fruit sourced from China are being sold as Vietnamese products in order to scam customers.

Small merchants at Ben Thanh Market in HCM City have been found to be lying about the origins of products because prices for local goods are always double tjat of products made in China

Dried fruits sourced from China, for example, sell at 50,000 dong per kilo, while made-in-Vietnam products cost customers 120,000-130,000 dong per kilo.

Tuoi Tre reporters purchased dried fruits described as being made in Da Lat.  Included inside was a small label showing an address. However, when they followed this up they found it to be a supplier who distributes made-in-China products.

This HQ was just 50 square meters large, and there was no suggestion of any production happening there.

Under cover Tuoi tre reporters were told they just needed to make a call to place an order.

Believing the reporters were retailers, they were persuaded to buy products in large quantity for retailing. “My prices are low, just 40,000-50,000 dong per kilo. And you can re-sell at 100,000 dong per kilo, and make a good profit,” reporters were told.

The lady who met them also said retailers just needed to put the small label with address of producer into the boxes of products to persuade customers that the products were made in Vietnam.

Duong Cong Khanh, senior official from the HCM City Market Control Sub-department, said this is fraudulent behavior. He stressed products could only be labeled ‘made in Vietnam’ if that was genuinely the case.

Meanwhile, imports from China must be labeled as such and have a sub-label in Vietnamese.

Khanh said his agency has been making inspection tours to retail kiosks and has discovered many cases where sellers have changed the names of products to swindle customers.

VietNamNet/TT

Tags: Vietnam economy news