Weather and rising import costs blamed for hikes in essential goods

The prices of essential household items like fresh and processed food, cosmetics and paper have been rising steadily, causing big worries to housewives, reports Thoi Bao Kinh Te Saigon after a market survey.

Nga stopped her bicycle at a small market on Tan Thoi Hiep Road in HCM City’s District 12 to buy five duck eggs. She gave 11,000 dong to the seller, received 500 dong in change, and sighed. “I cannot buy anything with this 500 dong,” she said. “Even to buy onions to fry eggs, I need at least 1000 dong”.

Nga is a worker at a garment factory. Her family lives in Thanh Hoa province and she sees them once a year, at the Tet holiday. Nga shares a room with two friends; they budget 20,000 dong at maximum for a meal. After buying five eggs, Nga has 9500 dong in her pocket. With this, Nga can only buy a kilo of rau muong (water spinach) for five thousand dong, a piece of tofu for 3000 dong, a lemon and some hot peppers.

Nga related that previously, when eggs were still only 16,000-17,000 dong for ten eggs, she could buy six or seven for a meal, enough for her and her two roommates. As everything has become more expensive now, Nga has to buy less food. Many evenings when they finish eating, they look at each other wryly, confessing that they are still hungry.

It is now really a difficult period for factory workers like Nga, day laborers or low level government workers. Two jumps in egg prices since early May are blamed on the hot weather; evidently the birds are too tired to lay. Chicken eggs have reached 22,000 dong for ten, up 5000 dong. Duck eggs, previously 24,000,now cost 27,000 dong for ten.

Consumers hoped that food prices would follow when the petrol price fell by another 500 dong per litre on June 8. Instead, everything seems to have gotten steadily more dear, from vegetables to beef and seafood. Only pork has been stable. “Carrots are now 15,000 dong per kilo, fillet beef is 145,000, black tiger shrimp are 170,000 dong,” complained Quang, a District 8 housewife. “I’m paying two or three times as much for our food.”

Bui Hanh Thu, a top manager of Saigon Co-op, says that the supermarket chain is about to mark up some consumer goods by five to ten percent. “We’ve been notified by suppliers that they’re increasing their prices on paper products, electrical appliances, kitchenware, soaps – generally things that have substantial import content,” she explained.

At the Satra Bau Cat supermarket, the story was the same.

Producers offer two explanations: higher input prices and the hot weather. Retailers say that if wholesale prices go up, retail prices must follow.

The head of the Ba Huan Egg Company insists that the overly hot weather has reduced egg production. Meanwhile, she’s paying considerably more for chicken and duck feed, she explains.

Luu Quy Phuong at Saigon Paper Company confirms that paper prices are up 18 percent since the beginning of June, and he is not sure if the price will increase further in the near future. “Pulp’s doubled to $840-910 per tonne,” said Phuong. “Meanwhile, we we suffer from these damn electricity cuts. Power was off for eleven days in May. Not only do we lose production but it wears out our equipment. All these things put a heavy burden on us.”

Tags: Vietnam prices