At present, pork prices range from VND100,000 – 270,000 (US$4.1 – 11) per kilo, which is a mild growth of VND5,000 – 15,000 ($0.2 – 0.6) as opposed to last week. These prices have been maintained since February 8 (the 29th of the last month of the previous lunar year) because most pig slaughterhouses and wholesalers are still off for Tet holiday, resulting in a lower quantity of supplied pork.
Flowers are abundant, with prices from VND15,000 – 170,000 ($0.6 – 7) a bunch, depending on flower types. Shipping fees for processed food and other merchandise and taxi fees are also witnessing an increase of VND5,000 – 15,000 ($0.2 – 0.6) during this Tet holiday.
In general, these price growths are reasonable and predictable to the community.
Large supermarkets like Satra, Saigon Co.op, MM Mega Market, GO!, and BigC reported that their inventory of vegetables, ,meat, seafood is still abundant and ready to answer the needs of the public. Most of them were off only on Lunar New Year Day. Since the second day, they have operated from morning until noon or 15:00 p.m. On the 5th of the new lunar year, their business hours are back to normal.
The quantities of commodities entering Hoc Mon Wholesale Produce Market and Thu Duc Wholesale Produce Market from February 10-14 (the 1st – 5th of the New Lunar Year) are about 700 tonnes per day, equal to 30 percent of normal time as most catering service providers, industrial parks, and export processing zones in HCMC are still off.
However, from February 15 (the 6th of the first lunar month), this figure will gradually rise until February 24 (the first full moon of the new lunar year), when everything comes back to normal. The current volume of merchandise is sufficient to supply city dwellers.
