The domestic market has incredible growth this year, especially as industrial production and exports faced many obstacles, according to the Ministry of Industry and Trade’s domestic market management team.

The national purchasing power this year increased by 30 percent against last year due to trade promotion and discount programmes at the year end in supermarkets and trading centres as well as other domestic trade promotion programmes related to Vietnamese goods, the team said.

In December, the total retail sales and services in the country surged by 4.2 percent to 120.56 billion VND (6.35 million USD) compared with November’s total, it said.

The total retail for this year was estimated to jump by 18.6 percent to 1.2 trillion VND (63.16 million USD) against last year.

This was a significant growth while other macro economic indices declined because of impacts from the global financial crisis and the world economic downturn. The good growth rate showed the effectiveness of the Government’s stimulus package and the domestic trade promotion programmes, the team said.

Besides that, the trust of the people in the Government’s policies on recovering the domestic economy made them increase their purchasing, it said.

Before those solutions, the global financial crisis and the world economic downturn has impacted on the domestic economy in general and goods production and consumption in particular, the team said.

In the first two months of this year, the goods consumption was slow and production stagnated but from March, when the Government’s stimulus and the trade promotion programmes started, consumption of many goods still in stock recovered.

Export activities had many difficulties, causing the export value this year to fall by 9.5 percent to 56.7 billion USD compared with 2008.

The team said prices on the domestic market mostly stabilized this year although there were many destablising factors including loosened monetary policy, increased cost of coal, electricity and tap-water, and the impacts of natural disasters and diseases.

Nguyen Cam Tu, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade, said to manage prices and the domestic market in the upcoming Tet holiday, market management measures should be implemented strictly to control prices and the quality of goods, stop the smuggling of goods and trade fraud and protect domestic production and consumer rights./.