Twelve producers and distributors in Ho Chi Minh City have pledged to provide the market with safe and qualified products in line with an agreement they signed with the city’s market monitoring agency on December 8, the Saigon Times Daily reported.

The participating firms include supermarket chains Big C, Aeon, Citimart and Maximark, Thien Hoa Electronics Center, and other consumer products and electronics distributors. Hat firm Non Son, Thu Duc rice vermicelli firm, and Binh Minh Gas Ltd. Co. are among the producers joining the programme.

The enterprises promise not to store, trade or produce banned and fake products, and the items unsafe and unqualified or violating intellectual property rights.

The management boards of Pham Van Hai, Ben Thanh, Dan Sinh, Binh Tay, Tan Binh and An Dong wet markets also pledge with HCM City authorities to discourage vendors from selling prohibited and counterfeit products.

Food distributors and producers of the city’s safe food chain programme also clinched deals to consume products of one another.

In the middle of last year, HCM City initiated a pilot programme to apply food management to the process of production, processing and distribution to ensure food hygiene and safety for consumers.

Huynh Le Thai Hoa, head of the city’s food safety agency, said 45,000 tonnes of vegetables, seafood, livestock and poultry meat and 197 million eggs have been certified as safe and qualified products more than one year after the programme was launched.

Interested enterprises should register with the city’s food safety agency to join the programme. The agency will appraise their products and issue certificates for the items meeting standards.

Information about high-quality products of the programme is available at www.atvstp.org.vn.-VNA