Many commercial centres, supermarkets and traditional wet markets in Ho Chi Minh City are running promotion programmes from the start of this month, giving consumers chances to buy products with price discounts of up to 50 percent, a local newspaper reported on September 10.

According to the Saigon Times Daily, at present, supermarkets under Saigon Co.op including Co.opmart, Co.opXtraplus Thu Duc, Co.op Food store chains and TV shopping channel HTVCo.op are launching the “Pride in Vietnamese Goods 2014” programme until September 14.

Around 3,000 necessities from over 600 suppliers such as Vinamilk, Tuong An, Nam Duong, My Hao, Vinacafe, Kinh Do and Colusa will be discounted by up to 50 percent.

Vo Hoang Anh, marketing director of Saigon Co.op, said the price cuts aim to boost consumption and is in response to the campaign of promoting Vietnamese goods and the 2014 promotion month of HCM City.

Besides selling products with discounts at its supermarkets, Saigon Co.op will deploy trucks carrying goods to rural areas and industrial parks to serve local people and workers, Anh added.

Saigon Trading Group, or Satra, also launches a promotion programme at Satra Pham Hung in Binh Chanh district with 600 products while buyers coming to Saigon Supermarket in District 10 will receive presents and can join a lucky draw apart from enjoying discounts on products of 200 suppliers.

Meanwhile, Big C supermarket chain also runs a range of promotion programmes from on September 9 to October 6 with discounts of between 5 percent and 50 percent on nearly 1,000 items.

Besides food products, around 2,000 household application products and electronic devices sold at price discounts of up to 49 percent are available at Thien Hoa Electronics Center during this month.

In addition, as many as 40 traditional markets in the city such as Ben Thanh, Nguyen Thai Binh and Tan Dinh in District 1, Phu Lam, Binh Tay and Binh Tien in District 6 and Xom Chieu in District 4 also offer price reductions of 5-30 percent on clothes, footwear, bags and foods.

The city’s Department of Industry and Trade said that competent agencies and market monitoring teams of districts will conduct inspections to ensure the quality of products joining sales promotions this month.

In this year’s promotion month, there will be around 4,370 places selling goods at discounts from 1,200 enterprises and 3,000 family-run businesses, up 45.6 percent against last year.-VNA