Nguyễn Đình Chiểu Market in HCM City’s Phú Nhuận District is open but only 15 traders are allowed to sell at a time. — Photo tuoitre.vn

HCM CITY — The HCM City People Committee has instructed Thủ Đức City and district authorities to draw up plans to reopen traditional markets and ensure they remain safe from Covid-19.

It instructed the Department of Industry and Trade to monitor the reopening and report back to it.

The department has called on district authorities to soon assess and develop the plans, and if the COVID situation is too risky, they should set up mobile sales points for essential foods and fresh produce at markets that remain closed to ensure adequate supply.

The department is taking measures to quickly reopen traditional markets, an urgent requirement since the city's three largest wholesale markets, Thủ Đức, Hóc Môn and Bình Điền, and hundreds of supermarkets and convenience stores are closed, leading to temporary food shortages.

Only 40 out of 234 traditional markets remain open.

Many districts have kept all traditional markets closed because the epidemic situation remains risky, with infections routinely being detected in the market areas.

To ensure steady supply and stable prices, the department has set up 3,001 price-stabilisation points at supermarkets and convenience stores and 388 mobile sales points.

It has worked with suppliers to set up price-stabilised mobile sales points to help poor and disadvantaged people and those living in locked-down areas.

It is also taking safety measures at markets such as issuing grocery cards and numbered tickets to limit the number of shoppers inside traditional markets and trialling a plan to allow only two to 15 fruit and vegetable traders (depending on the size of the market) to sell at a time. — VNS