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Representatives of businesses are committed to ensuring enough Tet products and stable prices to serve the people.

Do not worry about lack of Tet goods

Holding a key role in stabilising the Tet market, the Union of Trade Cooperatives of Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon Co-op) said a large amount of essential goods had been prepared for full service three months before, during and after New Year's Eve with a total value of nearly VND5,000 billion, up nearly 20% compared to the last year. In which, most of the budget prioritises investment in reserves of nine groups of goods to stabilise the market, including rice, sugar, cooking oil, pork, poultry, eggs, processed foods, vegetables, fruits and seafood, the rest is for other food, non-food items and specialties for Tet.

According to Nguyen AnhDuc, General Director of Saigon Co-op, because the pandemic from the beginning of the year to now has had a great impact on the production and supply of goods, Saigon Co.op has taken the initiative to stock up on goods very early. At the same time, Saigon Co.op has prepared many plans for timely transportation and distribution of goods to respond to the pandemic changes to ensure essential goods with good prices are always enough. In the cargo reserve this year, Saigon Co-op also added a relative amount of anti-pandemic products such as masks, antiseptic solutions and hand sanitiser.

To prepare a good source of goods for Tet, from the middle of the year, Saigon Co-op worked with production units and suppliers to prepare a plan to increase the quantity of essential goods by two times to take the initiative in the reserve supply to regulate the prices of Tet goods. At the same time, to ensure the quality of goods, Saigon Co.op also plans to increase the frequency of goods quality control by five to 10 times compared to anormal business month, especially Tet foods. Shopping and work spaces are disinfected, wearing a mask and measuring body temperature is mandatory.

Similarly, identifying the final months of the year as the peak months for shopping, Vietnam Animal Industry Joint Stock Company (Vissan) said it had completed the preparation of goods for the Tet market, in which the output of processed food is 5,200 tonnes and fresh food of all kinds such as pigs and cows is 2,300 tonnes. In the group of poultry eggs, Truong Chi Thien, Director of VinhThanhDat Food Joint Stock Company, said that this year, the preparation of Tet goods took place quite smoothly. The company has completed the cooperation with partners to invest and develop the total herd, increasing the output of poultry eggs of all kinds for the Tet market by about 10% compared to the same period last year.

A representative of VinCommerce General Trading and Service Joint Stock Company said that Tet preparations have been implemented since October. This year, due to the influence of the Covid-19 pandemic, the company will prepare the supplies to focus on the essential necessities for family meals.

Price stability

Before the strong fluctuations of the pandemic market, what people worry about most is that goods prices on the occasion of Tet will be pushed up. According to the Department of Industry and Trade of Ho Chi Minh City, in order to stabilise the Tet market, enterprises participating in the Market Stabilisation Program pledged to keep prices stable, not to increase selling prices one month before and after Tet; at the same time, implementing many promotions with deep discounts in the two days beforeTet for essential items like pork, chicken and eggs.

To ensure the supply of goods for the Tet market, the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Industry and Trade said enterprises preparing to produce, the reserve for the two months of Tet were VND19,679.7 billion, up VND652.4 billion (3,43%) compared with the capital source to prepare for TetCanh Ty 2020 (VND19,027.3 billion), in which the value of goods to prepare for market stabilisation is VND7,132.6 billion. Particularly, the peak month for Tet (from 1 to 30 December of the lunar calendar), the total value of goods prepared by enterprises is VND10,425.6 billion, goods to stabilise the market is VND4,172.4 billion.

In addition, in the month of Tet to stimulate consumer purchases, businesses will run many promotional programmes, focusing on Tet items, such as soft drinks, cakes, candies, jam, and clothing. Large distribution systems like Saigon Co.op, Satra, Aeon - Citimart and BigC plan to organise many promotions from 5% to 49% for thousands of items for Tet such as soft drinks, cakes, candy and jam.

This year, to reduce the pressure on shopping accumulated in the last days of the year, the system of Co.opmart, Co.opXtra, Co.op Food, Co.op Smiles, Cheers, Finelife, HTVCo.op, and Sense City of Saigon Co.op will reduce Tet prices in two months in advance to help consumers plan to purchase decorative items, home cleaning, and basic necessities to save early, onthe days near Tet, customers just choose the convenience and processed foods of the supermarket. Accordingly, from December 16to Tet, the Saigon Co-op retail system began to rotate sharply for thousands of products.

In addition, the Co-op supermarket system is expected to organise about 200 mobile sales trips to remote and remote areas during the Lunar New Year and serve Tet shopping needs of many workers in industrial zones - export processing zones in HCM City and localities with Co-op mart operations.