Over the past months, the market prices of consumer goods in Da Nang increased slightly due to hikes in fuel prices and a shortage of agricultural product supplies as a result of last year’s unfavourable weather conditions. 

Shoppers at the BigC Mall (Photo: Xuan Duyen)

To deal with this matter, the city authorities have unveiled plans to stabilise the market prices of essential goods during the upcoming 2018 Tet Festival which begins on 16 February.

Many of the local businesses and traders have already spent an estimate of close to 829.5 billion VND in total on stockpiling food and consumer goods to be ready for supplying local residents.

Of this figure, nearly 180 billion VND has been spent by a total of 10 local production, trading and distribution enterprises on essential goods to prepare for Tet.  These goods include 200 tonnes of rice, about 750 tonnes of poultry and livestock meat, around 145 tonnes of fruit and vegetables, plus nearly 450 tonnes of processed and frozen food.

Thousands of small traders in the city’s 8 largest markets, namely the Con, Han, Dong Da, Hoa Cuong Wholesale, Moi, Hoa Khanh, Sieu Thi Nguyen Kim, and Tho Quang Seafood Wholesale markets, now have goods for Tet available, in total approximately 150 billion VND.

The remaining nearly 500 billion VND has been spent by stores in local specialised shopping areas along streets.

The stockpiling aims to satisfy the city’s growing demand for Tet goods, and to stabilise the prices to better serve local residents.

Apart from implementing the market price stabilisation programme in the inner-city, sales programmes will be organised before Tet in nearby industrial parks (IPs), and rural and mountainous areas, to ensure social welfare.  The intention is to bring high-quality products, with a clear source of origin, to local workers and rural residents at reasonable prices to help them celebrate Tet.

In particular, the municipal Trade Promotion Centre and the city’s Labour Union will jointly organise a Tet fair, featuring a total of 40 stands, to supply Tet goods for workers at the Hoa Khanh IP. 

During the 3 days/2 nights fair, customers will enjoy a wide range of attractive discount programmes.
In a similar vein, Co.op Mart has also already made plans to stockpile Tet goods in order to ensure sufficient supplies of safe, high-quality goods for local shoppers before and after Tet.  In addition, a promotional programme, with discounts of between 10% and 15%, will be applied to thousands of products in the days leading up to the Tet festival.  The mall will increase the number of staff, and extend its opening hours before and during the Tet period to meet the increasing shopping demands of local residents.

A wide range of Tet consumer goods are now on display at the BigC Mall

Like in the previous years, Co.op Mart will organise 2 sales programmes in Hoa Vang District’s remote communes.  Under these programmes, the rural customers there will enjoy the same retail prices as similar products sold in the inner city areas, and there will be various interesting promotions. 

Hopefully, the number of shoppers to the big mall is expected to increase by 15% in the days leading up to the Tet festival against the same period last year.

The local authorities have already urged relevant local agencies to increase their checks and inspections of trading activities at local markets and other business establishments.  The focus will be on ensuring that all local markets, supermarkets, and trading centres display the prices of their services, and sell them at those prices.

Importance will be attached to dealing with smuggling, trading in fake goods and poor-quality items, and commercial fraud.  Top priority will also be given to controlling prices to prevent local traders from increasing the prices of their products before Tet.

Greater efforts will be made to increase inspections of local warehouses to deal with any trading violations, and to ensure food safety and hygiene in the city.