Price of keo fish recovers after cancer rumour denied

HA NOI — Price of keo (mud skipper) fish, a popular Mekong Delta treat, have risen again following a recent rumour that the fish could be harmful to people was confirmed to be baseless.

The price increased to VND60,000 (US$3) per kg of keo fish since Monday, VND10,000 ($0.5) higher than a couple of weeks ago, during the height of the rumour-mongering.

To Thanh Diep, a trader in southern most Ca Mau Province, said consumers started to buy the fish again after the fish received a clean bill of health.

Farmer Nguyen Van Phong in Dam Doi District said he had received a contract to sell his fish at VND10,000-higher than previous days.

"I can now harvest 18 tonnes of fish per hectare and the price increase is like to bring good profits," he said.

"However, the current price remains too low, just a third of its previous price," said Nguyen Cong Quoc from the province's Department of Fisheries Resources Management.

The rumour triggered a drastic fall in the price of the fish.

Prior to the malicious rumour, keo fish were sold at VND200,000 (US$9.5) per kilo and was set to keep on increasing until the Tet holiday, he said.

The rumour started in Ca Mau Province and then quickly spread across the Mekong Delta region, hitting thousands of fish farmers. It is estimated that around 250 tonnes of keo fish in coastal provinces in the region could not be sold as a result of the consumer boycott.

Heads of agriculture and rural development department of localities in the region instructed relevant agencies to promptly work to counter the rumour, which had dramatically affected farmers.

Quoc affirmed that there was no scientific foundation proving that the fish contained toxic chemicals that caused cancer among humans.

In fact, fish raisers used food and medicines as permitted by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Quoc said. — VNS

Related Articles

• Higher demand pushes up scooter prices
• WWF to remove Vietnam’s tra fish from red list
• Chau Doc’s curried fish vermicelli: Bun nuoc ken
• Tour prices to jump ahead of lunar new year
• Vietnam’s tra fish export to Egypt still down

Inflation poised to take off

Shoppers at a Hapro minimart in Ha Noi. Despite predictions of price increases in the lead-up to lunar new year, the Ha Noi Trade Co has committed to maintain current prices on essential goods through the end of the year. — VNA/VNS Photo Tran Viet

HA NOI — The prices of essential goods such as rice, sugar, meat and cooking oil are predicted to increase in the weeks running up to the Tet (lunar New Year) holiday.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development's Department for Planting and Breeding had estimated that the domestic market would be short of 40,000 tonnes of pork, causing the price to rise by 5-7 per cent from the current average level of VND80,000/kg, said Ha Noi Supermarkets' Association chairman Vu Vinh Phu.

Bird flu had also re-emerged in the northern province of Nam Dinh and could cause a scarcity of poultry if the outbreak became more widespread. Even without this impact, prices were expected to rise seasonally by 5-10 per cent, Phu said.

Ba Huan Co Ltd director Pham Thi Huan affirmed that, due to a surge in input costs and the fact that more farms were raising chickens for meat rather than eggs, the price of eggs would also increase by VND250 per egg.

Sugar enterprises were stockpiling 36,000 tonnes of sugar, 10,000 tonnes more than last year, and were importing an additional 90,000 tonnes this year to ensure no shortages, with any price increases likely to remain below 2 per cent, said the deputy head of the ministry's Department of Agro-Forestry and Aquatic Product Processing and Salt Making, Tran Thi Mieng.

The most worrying factor in the expected price hikes was the psychology of buyers and sellers, commented Ha Noi Department of Industry and Trade deputy director Nguyen Van Dong.

As Tet approached,vendors sought to make higher profits while consumers wanted to stock up on sufficient foods for the holidays, leading to the price increase, Dong said, adding that his department had requested enterprises account for any planned price increases.

So far this year, nine localities nationwide have applied price stabilisation programmes. Ha Noi has spent VND500 billion (US$25 million) and HCM City VND380 billion ($190 million) implementing these programmes.

Meanwhile, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Ho Thi Kim Thoa said petrol reserves remained sufficient to satisfy domestic demand through the holiday.

The ministry has asked Petrolimex, the nation's leading petrol distributor, to stockpile sufficient supplies. Other enterprises were required to reserve their products in line with regulations, she said, so no shortage of oil or petrol would occur.

Domestic petrol distributors were also required to maintain price levels until Tet, she added, and the State Bank of Viet Nam had been tasked with satifsying the demand of importers for foreign currency to ensure supplies.

Petrolimex deputy director Nguyen Quang Kien said that the nation would import $800 million worth of oil and petrol between now and the end of the year. — VNS

Pharma executive arrested for alleged securities fraud

HCM CITY — Le Van Dung, chairman and general director of Duoc Vien Dong Pharmaceutical Company, has been detained by police for alleged securities price manipulation.

The company is listed on the HCM City Stock Exchange as DVD.

This is the first arrest in Viet Nam involving securities fraud since the country's stock market opened in 2000.

Dung made transactions with other people to allegedly manipulate the price of another pharmaceutical firm, the Duoc Ha Tay Company, listed on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange as DHT.

The transactions were alleged have been made via trading accounts opened by Dung's younger brother Le Van Manh and several other people.

The transactions created false demand, and lured many investors into buying DHT shares at high prices. They then suffered losses.

According to the State Securities Commission, on June 21 Dung held 18.74 per cent of DHT's VND41 billion (US$2.05 million) in chartered capital.

The Medi Investment Company, a shareholder of DVD, also owned several per cent, as well as DVD itself.

In all, they have a stake of 28.68 per cent. Their purchases, as a group, are supposed to be made public when they exceeded 25 per cent under current regulations. But they were not, according to authorities.

DVD and a group of shareholders continued their DHT buying, increasing their ownership to around 60 per cent, according to Tuoi Tre Newspaper.

They managed to inflate the DHT price, from VND30,000 to VND100,000. DVD sold out its stake in July.

Last Friday, DHT shares closed at VND49,300.

In early September, DHT officially blamed the price fall on manipulation by DVD and those people associated with it.

The SSC suspended DVD share issuance to the public for 60 days beginning November 19, basing its decision on the incorrect, insufficient information in the prospectus.

Dung holds around 4 million out of the total of 11.9 million DVD shares.

Last Thursday, DVD executive board relieved Dung of his position as the company chairman and general director.

HOSE announced last Friday that DVD shares would be put on alert as a way to protect investors, saying Dung's arrest might strongly affect the company's operation. — VNS

Related Articles

• Warning issued for DVD stock after chairman detention
• Australia wants stronger cooperation to vocational education
• Penny stocks help lift markets
• Nine to be tried for embezzlement
• Nine to be tried for embezzlement

Workers fight for survival as prices soar

Consumers buy food at the Dich Vong wholesale market in Ha Noi. People, especially low-income earners, are facing a price hike of goods as the Vietnamese dong continues to depreciate. — VNA/VNS Photo The Duyet

HA NOI — As the lunar New Year festival approaches, the prices of goods have soared as usual. But the increase has come earlier this year. As the Vietnamese dong continues to depreciate, people have been faced with increased living costs.

Ta Van Sy, a labourer at HCM City's Tan Tao Industrial Park, said last month he had to send his wife and children back to their native province to cut costs as his family relies solely on his modest salary of VND2 million (US$102) a month.

"It is impossible to resist the price storm now," says Sy, "I work on Sunday to send extra money to my wife and children in the countryside."

To cope, workers have cut daily expenses dramatically.

Another worker, Pham Thi Vy, also earns about VND2 million a month and uses almost all of it to pay for food, electricity, water and her brother's school tuition.

Vy says she recently moved into a 10q.m room with a friend to save money.

As of mid-August, the monthly price for a room near the industrial parks and export processing zones in HCM City increased by between VND50,000 (US$2.5) and VND100,000 ($5.1).

Prices for foods like rice, cooking oil, meat, and vegetables have also increased to dizzying levels.

Nguyen Thi Nhung, an employee at a State enterprise in Ha Noi, jokes that shopping in supermarkets is harder than performing magic tricks.

"I have very little money and everything is expensive and all prices are increasing," Nhung says.

Economist Ngo Tri Long, former deputy head of the Market and Price Research Institute, attributes rising prices to multiple causes.

He says the exchange rate rise between Vietnamese dong and the US dollar is one factor.

Long says Viet Nam has been exposed to dollarisation (the holding by residents of foreign currency), meaning the impact of the rate adjustment may have been even stronger once imported goods are sold and people convert dollars to dong.

"The rate adjustment has devaluated the dong, causing increased input costs to produce goods," Long says.

The economist also attributes price rise to the loss of consumer confidence and to the trend among traders of hoarding rice to export to neighbouring countries, a situation Long says will immediately affect prices.

According to deputy director of the Ha Noi Industry and Trade Department Nguyen Van Dong, the total commodity circulation in February will be about VND19.2 trillion in value ($960 million) or an increase by between 20 and 22 per cent compared with the earlier months.

He says Ha Noi will have to import pork from other provinces because it has met only 70 per cent of the city's demand.

The inability to meet consumption demand will encourage hoarding or the spread of false information to raise prices and earn illegal profits, says deputy head of Ha Noi Market Watch Vuong Tri Dung.

To reduce pressure, Ha Noi authorities have decided to lend enterprises VND400 billion ($20.5 million) with preferential interest rates to help them stock goods for the lunar New Year period.

But Nguyen Minh Phong, an expert at the Ha Noi Socio-Economic Development Institute, says this will not be effective enough to stabilise market prices.

Phong suggests the State satisfy demand for foreign currencies among enterprises and apply drastic measures to stabilise the price of products like electricity, coal, water, and oil and gas. — VNS

Related Articles

• Ha Noi employers dangle higher paychecks to attract workers
• Minister praises role of fund in keeping petrol prices down
• Handicraft workers use own trademarks
• Banks lavish loans on Delta agriculture
• Market moves up sharply

Rural residents pay through the nose

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

HA NOI — Residents in rural areas are missing out on price-stabilised products that are mainly being sold at wholesale markets and supermarkets in urban areas.

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

Related Articles

• Wrong diagnoses almost kill two in delta hospital
• President urges breakthrough in VN-Japan business ties
• Steel bar shoots through Hanoi taxi
• Big enterprises benefit from tax mechanism
• Prime Minister discusses relations, co-operation with Lao counterpart