People buy vegetables at a supermarket in Hà Nội. — VNA/VNS Photo

HÀ NỘI — Hà Nội is carrying out a series of stimulus and promotion programmes so as to recover the purchasing power of the domestic market on the occasion of the upcoming lunar New Year holiday.

Acting Director of the municipal Department of Industry and Trade Trần Thị Phương Lan said that the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a sharp decrease in the buying power due to lower per capita income.

Thanks to several stimulus programmes to boost consumer spending such as the concentrated promotion month, Hà Nội Promotion Month 2021, and Vietnamese Goods Weeks, the capital city’s total retail sales of goods and services in the fourth quarter of 2021 was higher than that of the third quarter. However, the total retail sales of goods and services in 2021 was down 4.6 per cent compared to that of the previous year.

As the Lunar New Year is usually the best time in a year for retail firms to make breakthrough growth, they are exerting efforts to take advantage of this occasion.

Major supermarkets such as VinMart and Co.opmart plan to offer discounts of up to 50 per cent on thousands of products.

E-commerce platforms like Sendo, Shopee, Lazada and Tiki are also carrying out attractive promotion programmes to stimulate the purchasing power.

Along with consumer stimulus, Dr. Ngô Trí Long, former director of the Ministry of Finance's Price and Market Research Institute, proposed the Government issue solutions to promote the purchasing power through tax and fee reduction packages to reduce product prices.

Lan asked retail systems and firms to control the quality of discounted products and ensure food safety and hygiene.

She also stressed the need for a close coordination between State management agencies in guiding and monitoring promotion activities to ensure the publicity, transparency and effectiveness of these programmes as well as consumers’ interests. — VNS