According to Nguyen Thai Dung, deputy director of BigC, the 5 percent growth in petrol prices will not greatly affect the prices of products in the supermarkets.
He added that the government’s demand stimulus package has support a 4 percent cut in interest rates for many enterprises. This has widely reduced the input costs of many manufactures and also helps them to reduce the prices of their products.
The increase of VND700 a litre of petrol cannot really affect the prices of most products.
Despite a slight increase, the selling prices of products in the supermarkets are likely to remain stable till at least the middle of July, said the deputy director of Fivimart, Vu Thi Hau.
As most products are made by a wide range of companies, enterprises cannot survive in the market if they automatically change prices without any regard to their competitors. Normally, they would announce changes prices one or two week before hand. However, at this time, many supermarkets do not get any warning from the manufactures.
To increase their purchasing power, many supermarkets have launched big promotion programmes. From June-August, BigC are running 4. Each of the programmes will include more than 200 products with reduced prices of up to 50 percent and a lottery programme with the total value of VND2.7 billion to mark the supermarket’s 11 anniversary. The Fivimart in Trung Yen attracts consumers by cutting the prices by 20 percent on more than 200 products.
The Intimex Chain markets have also planned a promotional campaign to mark the Hanoi’s Promotion Month from November 1-30. Between 350 to 500 enterprises will attend, including 100 large firms in the commodity market.