Vegetables, fruits and poultry eggs are the items that Ho Chi Minh City is lacking the most, so it needs support from businesses in the Eastern and Central Highlands regions.
This information was shared by Mr. Nguyen Nguyen Phuong, Deputy Director of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Industry and Trade at a press conference on the afternoon of July 16. The reason is said to be that localities are applying Directive 16, causing many people in the Western region to also stock up on these items. Therefore, suppliers in Ho Chi Minh City have difficulty purchasing and are always in a state of not being able to ensure a source of goods to meet people's needs.
According to Mr. Phuong, the current price of eggs in supermarkets is still stable and much lower than in the market. Therefore, in recent days, there has been a situation where some individuals have collected eggs in supermarkets to sell outside for profit, causing local shortages.
"To avoid this situation, many supermarkets have issued regulations that each person can only sell a maximum of 2 cartons of eggs," said Mr. Phuong, adding that in the near future, to ensure an abundant supply of goods, the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Industry and Trade will work with the Eastern and Central Highlands provinces to connect sources of goods for the city.
People shopping at a supermarket in Ho Chi Minh City
"We hope that the provinces will not only support the connection of goods sources for Ho Chi Minh City, but also need to unify the circulation to avoid congestion during transportation," Mr. Phuong emphasized, adding that currently, businesses supplying goods are under a lot of pressure. Because each province has its own regulations, circulation is difficult.
According to the Department of Industry and Trade, before implementing Directive 16, every day the city's residents needed 7,000 tons of food including vegetables, tubers, fruits, meat, livestock and poultry. When the 3 wholesale markets stopped operating, the supply was difficult, the output through the wholesale markets only reached 2,700 tons, a decrease of more than 50%.
Currently, the Department has mobilized supermarkets to increase the scale and supply capacity from 1,130 tons to 2,465 tons, but compared to people's needs, there is still a shortage of about 1,000 tons of vegetables, tubers, fruits, fresh food, etc.
Accordingly, mobile sales points are being increased to reduce the load on the supermarket system. As for traditional markets that have been temporarily closed, the Department of Industry and Trade has piloted reopening them to sell vegetables. Phu Tho is the first market to be deployed from July 16 with an initial sales volume of 6 traders. "The Department is continuing to work with districts to assess the situation and reopen traditional markets that have sufficient conditions for epidemic prevention. The markets will operate under a self-management model," said Mr. Phuong.
Accordingly, women and youth forces will participate in monitoring market activities, following the model of minimizing market stalls, implementing 5K, adding screens... At the same time, they can guide traders to sell goods at the same price, not to transact for long periods.
In addition, commodity business chains are also being allowed to add vegetables and fruits to the list of items to sell to people.
Specifically, the Con Cung chain store group will have 150 points of sale, the chain store specializing in health products will have 65 points of sale, the chain store beauty stores and the Vinshop system will also sell vegetables and frozen goods...
Seven logistics companies have also been mobilized with a capacity of 1,000 tons of goods to cool down food prices in traditional markets. The Department also worked with Tiki, Lazada, Sendo to unify the sale of vegetables and fruits on e-commerce platforms and use the warehouses of these units.
With 3 wholesale markets, the Department has worked with the authorities of Thu Duc City and Hoc Mon District to exploit areas near the wholesale markets to carry out goods transit. Up to now, the Thu Duc market transit point has been put into operation for 3 days, receiving 100 tons of vegetables and fruits per day from localities.
As for Hoc Mon wholesale market, it is being proposed to find a gathering point for goods transit. Accordingly, the Department requested the Company managing this market to develop a traffic diversion plan, arrange accommodation for workers at the transit point, and separate areas for different groups of workers to ensure epidemic prevention plans....