Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - The purchasing power in the domestic market isexpected to increase by between 15-20 percent from now until the 2021 Tet(Lunar New Year), with food products seeing the strongest rise, said Tran DuyDong, Director of the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT)’s Domestic MarketDepartment.

The higher purchasing power is due to consumer confidence in macro-economicstability, along with increasing income of people at the end of the year, hesaid.

Therefore, enterprises have plans to prepare enough supply of goods andconsumption stimulus programmes to meet people's needs, Dong said.

Those plans would not cause a great change in selling prices, according to theministry.

Meanwhile, at local markets, the prices of fresh food items will regularlyfluctuate in the days approaching Tet due to strong increase in food demand.However, growth rate of the prices may be curbed partly because of stableprices at supermarkets and commercial centres and points sellingstabilised-priced goods in localities, Dong said.

According to Nguyen Quoc Toan, Director of the Ministry of Agriculture andRural Development (MARD)’s Department of Agricultural Product Processing andMarket Development, all agricultural sectors such as cultivation, husbandry andfisheries are promoting production and processing to meet the needs ofconsumers at year-end and the Lunar New Year festival.

Toản said the demand for livestock products, especially meat and eggs, until Tetis expected to increase by 5-10 percent compared to the monthly average demandat about 250,000-350,000 tonnes of meat and 1-1.7 billion eggs.

With the maintenance of stable cattle and poultry herds after re-production anddisease is strictly controlled, the market will keep a balance between supplyand demand for all kinds of meat to avoid a shortage of food.

Tran Thi Phuong Lan, Deputy Director of the Hanoi Department of Industry andTrade, said by the end of 2020 and until the Lunar New Year in 2021, shoppingdemand in Hanoi will increase by between 3-20 percent for each commodity group.

To meet the needs of the people, the department has asked businesses in Hanoi toprepare sufficient supply for commodities with high demand before and during Tet,such as dried agricultural products (up 25-33 percent against normal months);gasoline (up 20 percent); and flowers and ornamental plants (up 25-35 percent).

The total value of goods for Tet in Hanoi is estimated to reach about 39.4trillion VND, up about 5 percent compared to that for Tet in 2020.

Besides diversified supply sources, Lan said, the department opened 12 localmarkets and 300 mobile vendors to bring products to the people in suburbandistricts and mountainous communes, as well as employees in industrial zones.

Retailers will also sell goods for Tet at 28 shopping malls, 142 supermarkets,455 markets, 11,382 e-commerce websites, thousands of convenience stores andagricultural product distribution chains.

Hanoi will open 28 sales points for producers and traders from other localitiesto sell their regional specialties, ensuring quality, origin and reasonableprice, said Lan.

At the same time, the departments of industry and trade of localities in theMekong Delta region have also completed preparation of goods for Tet.

According to the Department of Industry and Trade of Kien Giang, the provincehas a total volume of 51,500 tonnes of goods for Tet worth about 2.3 trillionVND, an increase of 6.73 percent over the same period last year.

In Tien Giang, the provincial People's Committee has plans to ensure the supplyof essential goods for Tet in 2021. Under the plan, enterprises andcooperatives will store goods worth about 443.6 billion VND, including 98.4billion VND in essential goods such as rice, sugar, cooking oil, meat andpoultry./.