Consumers shop at BigC supermarket in Hanoi. Provinces and cities were gearing up preparation for Tet (Lunar New Year) holiday (Photo: VNA/VNS)Hanoi, (VNS/VNA) - Provinces and cities are gearing up for the coming Tet (LunarNew Year) holiday to ensure an adequate supply of essential goods with theCOVID-19 pandemic still developing globally.
Tran Thi Phuong Lan,Deputy Director of Hanoi Department of Industry and Trade, said largecompanies have begun to stockpile goods for Tet andpreparing plans to supply the capital city when there was a sudden increase indemand.
Lan said thevolume of goods in the warehouses and big companies is large enough tosupply the capital city’s market for 60-90 days.
Some big retailers,such as Central Retail Group which runs the BigC supermarket chain, BRG whichruns Hapro, Intimex, SEIKA mart and BRG Mart, and Co.opmart have increasedtheir stockpiles of necessary food and foodstuff by 300 percent to 500 percentcompared to normal days.
Lan said that thecapital has set up groups to keep a close watch on the market development andto facilitate the distribution of goods to meet citizens' demand.
The city alsoprovides 2,156 locations for enterprises to open temporary warehouses or mobilepoints of sale, besides maintaining the operation of the retail system,including 142 supermarkets, 27 shopping centres, 1,700 convenience stores, 455markets and 11,382 e-commerce websites.
Amid the COVID-19pandemic, it is necessary to early implement the price stabilisation programmefor essential goods, Lan said.
The city is focusingon promoting the diversification of the distribution system to ensure goodswould reach consumers in the fastest and the most convenient way while creatingfavourable conditions for producers and distributors to access preferentialloans for production and business expansion and to stabilise prices.
Goods categories inthe price stabilisation programme included food, foodstuff, meat, seafood, egg,processed food, fresh vegetable and fruit, sugar, cooking oil, spice, milk,confectionery and beverage products.
The southern provinceof Dong Nai is also gearing up the price stabilisation programme for 12product categories, including rice, noodles, canned processed food, chicken,pork, eggs, sugar, cooking oil, spice, dipping sauce, textbooks and studentnotebooks.
Supermarkets,shopping centres, producers and distributors in the southern province have alsostarted to build production plans in line with the anticipated rise in demandaround Tet holiday to ensureadequate supply as well as preparing stockpile plans to prevent a shortage ofgoods or price fever./.
VNA
