Prime Minister requests measures to strengthen price management

The public electricity document was sent to Steering Committee for Price Administration of the Prime Minister; ministers and directors of ministerial-level agencies; Chairman of the People’s Committee of provinces and cities.

The content stated clearly that, in the face of fluctuations to the price of essential goods and services, the Government and Steering Committee for Price Administration have launched many solutions to stabilize price of goods and services; timely submitting to the Standing Committee of the National Assembly to reduce environmental protection tax for stabilization, reducing the price of domestic gasoline.

To promote the price management and administration and stabilize the price of essential goods and services which affect the consumer price index (CPI) and lives of people, business and production activities of organizations and individuals; especially the control of prices of goods and services after the sharp drop in gasoline prices recently, the Prime Minister requested the ministers, directors of ministerial-level agencies, and chairmen of the People's Committees of provinces and cities focus on immediately implementing a number of tasks.

It is necessary to balance the supply and demand of goods to serve domestic demand. Illustration photo: H.Dịu

Specifically, the Ministers, the directors of the ministerial-level agencies, the Chairman of the People's Committees of the provinces and cities continue to promote the implementation of the directives of Director of Steering Committee for Price Management; stepping up the supervision of market developments, promptly implementing solutions to ensure the balance of domestic supply and demand, stabilize prices, and prevent the situation of shortage of goods, hoarding, speculation and unreasonable price increases.

For goods directly affected by gasoline prices, such as passenger transport services, freight transport, and logistics, the Minister of Transport shall coordinate with the Chairman of the People's Committees of the provinces and cities to strengthen to review the enterprise's price declarations to assess the price adjustment appropriate with the fluctuations of input factors, especially the cost of petrol in price-forming factors. If it is possible to reduce the price, the unit is requested to declare the price reduction in a timely manner.

The unit shall strengthen the inspection of the observance of listed prices, collect service fees at the right listed prices of businesses, strictly handle acts of taking advantage of increasing prices unreasonably, and structure additional non-price revenues to collect higher prices compared to the declared or listed price.

For essential goods and services which are indirectly affected by gasoline prices, ministers, directors of ministerial-level agencies, chairman of People's Committees of provinces and cities shall direct closely monitor market price movements, organize and grasp the performance of business organizations and individuals to take appropriate measures on price management and stabilization, and actively inspect the price-forming factors in accordance with the Law on Prices and its competence when goods have abnormal fluctuations and handle violations in accordance with the regulations.

Regarding food prices; the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development in coordination with the Minister of Industry and Trade will direct and carefully assess the production situation, regulate the supply and demand of commodities to serve the domestic demands, regional and local demands as well as export demand to stabilize market prices.

For pork and animal feed products, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development will direct and guide localities, competent forces, organizations and individuals operating pig farming to continue focusing on promoting breeding, re-herding, processing, and ensuring supply to stabilize pork prices; carry out pandemic prevention and control work; organize appropriate and sustainable re-herding and breeding under a closed and bio-secure model; to step up the production of breeds to ensure that total pig herds of the whole country can meet domestic demand in the immediate and long term.

The Minister of Industry and Trade chairs and coordinates with the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, and the Chairman of the People's Committees of the provinces and cities in strengthening the inspection, review and evaluation of the distribution channel system, the supply of goods and services, slaughterhouses and wholesalers and retailers for pork products. They will be clarifying inadequacies and limitations (if any) to propose solutions to ensure the reduction of intermediaries, pushing costs of circulation and increasing selling prices; progress to perfecting a streamlined, efficient distribution, wholesale and retail system with reasonable circulation costs in the selling price structure.

For building materials; the Minister of Natural Resources and Environment and the Minister of Construction will coordinate with the Chairman of the People's Committees of the provinces and cities to effectively manage the supply and promptly handle cases of hoarding, keeping goods, disrupting the supply chain, increasing prices unreasonably and affecting the construction progress of investment works and projects, especially key national projects.

The Ministry of Construction directs the Departments of Construction to step up monitoring and updating of price fluctuations, in order to promptly announce the price of construction materials and research to shorten the publication cycle in accordance with the regulations.

For accommodation and tourism services, the chairman of the People's Committees of provinces and cities strengthened the inspection of the observance of the law on prices and price lists, in accordance with regulations. Acts of taking advantage of peak occasions and fluctuations in gasoline prices to raise prices unreasonably must be strictly handled.

For medicine and medical supplies, the Minister of Health calls for stabilized equipment prices in accordance with the law on prices, Resolution No. 12/2021/NQ-UBTVQH15 dated December 30, 2021 and Decree 98/2021/ND-CP dated November 8, 2021 on the management of medical equipment and strengthening the review of the declared prices of medicines and medical supplies, complying with the Law on Pharmacy; closely monitoring the pandemic situation to ensure adequate supply of drugs and medical supplies at reasonable prices to serve the needs of medical examination, treatment and disease prevention.

For textbooks, the Minister of Finance shall coordinate with the Minister of Education and Training to direct the review of price declarations in accordance with law; publishing units should continue to review and implement cost-saving measures to further reduce prices, contribute to controlling inflation, and ensuring social security and sharing with people.

For petroleum products, the Minister of Industry and Trade directed to continue monitoring the world price situation, flexibly using the tool of the petrol price stabilization fund to have an appropriate plan for managing domestic gasoline prices and strictly handling acts of speculation and hoarding. The Minister of Finance is directed to actively study and report to the Government on plans to adjust excise tax and value-added tax on petrol.

For goods and services in the list of goods and services listed by the State, the ministers, director of ministerial-level agencies, and chairman of the People's Committees of the provinces and cities, shall review to proactively have price adjustment solution or submit it to competent authorities for consideration and price adjustment in accordance with market price movements and levels in accordance with regulations.

The Prime Minister requested the Minister of Finance to chair and coordinate with the Minister of Planning and Investment, and the Governor of the State Bank of Vietnam to continue promoting the implementation of the synthesis, analysis and forecast of market prices, update detailed and timely price management scenarios for the remaining months of the year in order to advise the Government and the Prime Minister on an appropriate price management measures to control inflation following the target of 4% target as set.

The Prime Minister assigned the Minister of Information and Communications to coordinate with ministers, directors of ministerial-level agencies and chairman of People's Committees of provinces and cities to continue focusing on promoting information and dissemination, publicity, transparency of prices and to strictly and drastically handle in accordance with law cases of spreading false information, causing confusion to consumers and destabilizing the market in order to control inflation expectations.

In the near future, the inflation pressure still depends on price movements of raw materials, fuel and materials, food prices, agriculture supplies, construction materials, and transportation especially gasoline products, which are currently unpredictable and pose challenges for price management and administration between now until the end of the year.

Therefore, the Prime Minister requested that competent authorities, based on their functions, tasks and management competence, to direct the affiliated units to drastic implement the solutions proposed in this public electricity and the Government's solutions, the directives of the Prime Minister, the Director of the Steering Committee for Price Management, and closely grasped the situation to proactively handle effectively, absolutely not be subjective, neglect, control inflation following the set target to ensure people's life and production and business activities, thereby contributing to stabilizing the macro-economy and promoting growth.