A conference to discuss measures to stablise price of essential goodsahead the upcoming Lunar New Year (Tet) festival was held in Ho ChiMinh City on January 14.

The event was organised by themunicipal Department of Industry and Trade (DIT) in conjunction with theAssociation of Businesses in industrial parks (IPs) and exportprocessing zones (EPZs) and the Department of Health.

Representatives from the DIT introduced participants to plans toencourage enterprises, producers and credit organisations to join pricestabilisation programmes in the coming time.

Officials fromIPs and EPZs also proposed measures to enhance the effectiveness of theprogrammes. They suggested that the DIT diversify commodities inoutlets selling goods at stabilised prices and called for strictermanagement of the quality of these goods.

Meanwhile,the city’s Worker Support Fund asked the municipal Department of Healthto invite domestic pharmaceutical enterprises to take part instabilisation programmes of medicine prices in the parks and zones.

In 2013, the city’s price stabilisation programme did not use moneyfrom the State budget . It called on enterprises to participateoptionally, while providing the companies with incentives regardingadvertisement and distribution networks.

The programme has drawn the participation of 64 businesses.

Ho Chi Minh City has also implemented the campaign “Vietnamesepeople use Vietnamese goods”, contributing to increasing the proportionof Vietnamese goods in large supermarkets to 80-90 percent.

The city plans to organise various activities to encourage citizens to use local products.-VNA