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Local residents buy food at Dong Da Market in central Da Nang City. Residents in rural areas miss out on price-stabilised products sold at wholesale markets and supermarkets in urban areas. — VNS Photo Xuan Quang |
Nguyen Thi Yen, from Suoi Ngoc Hamlet in Ha Noi's Tien Xuan Commune, said she had heard that some shops were meant to be selling price-stabilised goods in rural areas but that she had yet to encounter one.
Tien Xuan Commune has been asked to establish two shops to sell inflation-busting low-cost goods. However, Pham Van Tinh, the commune's Party committee secretary, said there had been a supply problem.
"There are no shops at the moment because the commune has not yet received any price-stabilised products."
Elsewhere in Da Nang City, six shops selling price-stabilised rice have been established. However, all of them are based in central districts where locals earn higher incomes than their rural counterparts.
In Hoa Vang District, which is largely populated by poor farmers, low-skilled workers and students, there are no outlets.
Rice is meant to be sold at 10 per cent below the market price at certain outlets. However, Le Thi Minh said she hadn't even heard of the programme. Furthermore, she said the price had actually risen almost daily.
It is a similar story in Cuu Long (Mekong) delta provinces where low-cost rice is sold mainly at supermarkets and wholesale markets in urban areas.
"I don't have a clue where to find one of these outlets selling price-stabilised food," said Le Thanh Chien, a farmer from Tan Quy Dong Ward in Dong Thap Province.
Nguyen Van Chien, deputy head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade's Domestic Market Department, said a lack of funds was hampering the programme.
Chien called on provincial authorities to implement the programme HCM City, Ha Noi and Da Nang had done.
"The price stabilising programme is aimed at the poor," he said.
Le Viet Tuoi, deputy director of the Da Nang Department of Industry and Trade, admitted that the programme had not been fully implemented.
He attributed the failure of the programme to a lack of co-ordination among relevant offices and the Da Nang Food Joint-Stock Company, which was tasked with implementing the scheme.
Tuoi pledged to take steps to ensure more people got access to below-market-price goods.
Vu Quang Tuan, deputy director of the Thai Binh Province Department of Industry and Trade, said it was easier to implement the programme in cities such as Ha Noi and HCM City.
"The department does not have the money to fund the scheme," Tuan said.
He added that in Thai Binh, there was a high proportion of poor farmers who could not afford expensive products such as canned goods.
"Farmers are put at the greatest disadvantage because they are endeavouring to supply agricultural products for the price stabilising programme but do not get access to cheap goods," Tuan said.
Participants at a workshop in Ha Noi last Thursday to review the "Vietnamese people using Vietnamese goods" campaign that was launched a year ago, were told that more than 58 per cent of consumers were interested in home-produced products.
They also heard that enterprises focused on urban residents because they had greater purchasing power than their rural counterparts.
Yet according to a survey conducted by the Central Institute of Economic Management, rural areas consumed 70 per cent of domestically made food stuffs, that 70 per cent of consumers lived in rural areas and that 97 per cent of retail outlets were located in those parts.
The institute also cited other surveys conducted by different organisations that showed that the number of rural customers was three times that in urban areas. — VNS
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