The Ho Chi Minh City price-stabilisation programme is to launch a logo to label goods this year.

The logo will help customers recognise price-stabilised goods more easily and extend the reach of the programme to more city residents.

This is one of many plans to establish this year's price-stabilisation programme, which were reported at a meeting held by the municipal People's Committee on March 18.

Under the programme, which will begin in April and end on March next year, the city will continue to stabilise the price of four essential groups – food and foodstuff, milk, medicine and school supplies.

The quantity of price-stabilised goods will account for 25-65 percent of the market demand. Seventy two firms have registered to participate in this year's programme which has a total investment capital of 8.15 trillion VND (38 million USD), up 6.19 trillion VND against last year.

Participating firms will be provided soft loans to help carry out the programme.

As with last year, and in-line with the campaign slogan, "Vietnamese people give priority to using Vietnamese goods", Vietnamese price-stabilised goods will be prioritised over imported products.

This year, the programme will focus on improving the production capacity of agriculture co-operatives, ensuring all price-stabilised agricultural products are produced under Vietnamese Good Agriculture Practices (VietGAP).

At the meeting, Nguyen Thi Hong, deputy chairwoman of the municipal People's Committee, said the supply of price-stabilised goods into the market should be diversified. If the programme could sell price-stabilised goods to clinics, collective kitchens, industrial parks and export processing zones, it would be a huge victory for the programme, she said.

The programme is now in its twelfth year and Ho Chi Minh City currently has 7,783 shops selling price-stabilised goods.-VNA