Enterprises in Ho Chi Minh City and other provinces have clinched more than 430 contracts with a total value of over 19 trillion VND since the city launched a supply-demand connectivity programme nearly three years ago, the Saigon Times Daily reported.

Le Ngoc Dao, Deputy Director of the HCM City Department of Industry and Trade, unveiled the impressive numbers at a recent meeting with industry and trade leaders.

The third conference of the programme took place on October 31 with the participation of more than 1,100 enterprises from 38 cities and provinces nationwide.

To effectively implement the trade cooperation programme between HCM City and other localities in the southeastern and southwestern regions in 2011-2015, the HCM City Department of Industry and Trade kicked off the first connectivity programme in December 2012 to help localities sell farm produce, processed food, and specialties to distributors and retailers in HCM City.

The meeting that year attracted 198 enterprises from 14 provinces and cities and 43 deals were struck. As a result, many special products like pia cake of Tan Hue Vien in Soc Trang province, gourd-shaped pomelo, gold bullion-shaped watermelon, Cao Lanh mango in Dong Thap province entered the distribution systems of Co.opmart, Citimart, Big C and Lotte Mart, among others in the city.

One year later, the programme was expanded and the number of participating businesses rose to 347. Not only enterprises of 20 southern provinces but also those of Bac Giang, Bac Kan and Quang Ninh provinces in the north joined the programme and inked 394 trade deals with supermarket and restaurant chains in HCM City.

The programme enabled enterprises from other provinces to find outlets for their products in HCM City while partners here in the city were able to expand their distribution networks to other parts of the country to increase sales.

In addition, enterprises in HCM City joined the price stabilisation programmes in other provinces like Vinatexmart and Co.opmart.

Talking about the fruit of the supply-demand connectivity programme, Ta Minh Son, Director of Tu Son Supermarket in An Giang province, said his supermarket has benefited much from the programme.

Son added that of 100,000 products at the supermarket, 70 percent are supplied by partners in HCM City and annual growth at the supermarket is 30-35 percent.

With good results in previous years, the scale of this year’s programme is bigger with enterprises coming from 38 localities nationwide, including HCM City, 20 in the southern region and 17 in the northern, central and Central Highlands regions.-VNA