Despite the fact that a number of supermarket supplicers have announced that they plan to raise prices, retailers say it will not impact significantly on their businesses.

According to a representative from Intimex, suppliers of commodities such as imported food and plastic products have said they will raise prices by 3-5 percent.

Suppliers of products made from pork and beef were also planning to raise prices, the representative said.

Suppliers say the move is due to the strengthening dollar against the dong.

However, supermarkets said they only planned to raise prices by a modest amount.

The head of Citimart’s northern region, Nguyen Khanh Vinh, said :“Our supermarkets are still offering promotions so price hikes will not have a significant impact on our customers.”

A Big C representative said planned price hikes would largely affect just imported goods, which account for only 5 percent of sales.

Furthermore, the representative said Big C would only accept price hikes if it thought they were reasonable.

“We will refuse if suppliers propose to lift prices if it is because of petrol-price hikes because petrol costs do not significantly affect commodity prices,” she said.

Tran Thi Hang, director of the General Statistics Office’s Trade, Service and Pricing Department, forecast that the country’s consumer price index would increase by less than 1 percent per month in the fourth quarter, meaning that prices for the year would have risen by 7 percent./.