VietNamNet Bridge – Goods pile in heaps at enterprises’ warehouses these days, because the sale has been going very slowly in the context of weak demand. As goods remain unsalable, businesses do not have money to make reinvestment and pay workers.

Clients may break contracts at any times, even though they leave a deposit. Despite noisy sales promotion campaigns, manufacturers still cannot sell goods. A lot of kinds of materials such as fabric, sugar and fertilizer all have been left untouched. The inventory volumes of some kinds of products have reached hundreds of thousands of tons.

Small merchants have transferred kiosks to others. Enterprises have to cut down on production. Distributors do not dare to take on goods in high quality for fear of the unsalability.

Sellers “have nothing to do”

It is estimated that thousands of tons of goods are sold every day from the Binh Tay Market in HCM City. However, no ton of silk fabric or yarn is sold.

The same situation can also be seen in other fabric and clothes in the city, including An Dong, Soai Kinh Lam and Tan Binh. There are more sellers than buyers at the markets these days.

Tuyet, a small merchant at Binh Tay Market, said that she would feel lucky if she can sell several meters of fabric a day. Hoa Thanh, another merchant, said that she now sells wool scarves and hats as well, because the fabric sale alone is not enough to keep her busy.

In the Bay Hien “weaving village” in Tan Binh district, where workshops once operated all day and night to provide enough products to wholesale markets, are now quiet, because the machines only work at a moderate level.

The owner of the BH fabric workshop in Tan Binh district, said that he still does not know what to do with the increasingly high inventory volume. Wholesale markets and enterprises only place orders because of the low demand.

A workshop in Tan Binh district has revealed that 50,000 meters of fabric have been left unsold since Tet (February).

According to Tuoi tre newspaper, Fabric Vietnam’s board of directors has been put on tenterhooks, because the inventory volume has reached 300,000 meters. Some kinds of the company’s products such as jacquard, T/C,T/R, slub yarn, fancy yarn have seen the inventory volumes increasing, as the demand has dropped by 50 percent. A client has broken the contract, even though he deposited 30 percent of the total value already.

Cuong, the owner of a fertilizer shop in district 6 in HCM City, has complained that the business has never been so bad before. He believed that fertilizer products would not be unsalable, because this is the important input material for rice production. However, contrary to Cuong’s predictions, the sales have dropped by 50 percent in comparison with the same period of the last year.

Businesses dieing of exhaustion

Thoi bao Kinh te Vietnam has quoted Tran Dinh Thien, Head of the Economics Research Institute, as saying that Vietnamese businesses have been resilient, but they are nearly worn out.

According to Phap luat, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Nam Hai released worrying figures at the latest press conference that the industrial production index has increased by 4.1 percent only, while the inventory index has increased sharply. The index has reached 63 percent in some sectors.

Nguyen Thanh Hoa, Deputy Director of the Planning Department of the ministry, attributed the high inventory volume to the weaker demand from the public, as people have to tighten their belt in the context of high inflation. A lot of construction works have been delayed as a result of the policy on cutting public investment. The high bank loan interest rates, the frozen real estate market, plus the increasingly high input materials all have led to the production stagnation and high inventory index.

Source: TBKTVN, Phap luat