Commodity prices rise rapidly but fall slowly

On the morning of April 21, the National Assembly discussed socio-economic development plans.

Delegate Le Thi Thanh Lam (Can Tho Delegation) said that recently the Government has made great efforts in managing gasoline and oil prices.

The government has curbed gasoline prices, supported people and removed difficulties for production and business activities. The government has reduced budget revenue by about 7,200 billion VND per month to better support people. This is a great sharing of the State to stabilize the market and reduce input cost pressure on the economy.

According to the delegate, the prices of essential goods and services have not been adjusted accordingly. Outside the market, the price level of essential goods and services is still high, and delegates see that travel and transportation costs, food prices, and daily food items at people's markets have not decreased significantly.

The situation of rapid ups and slow downs is still quite common, causing the spending pressure in the daily life of people in general, and workers in particular, not to be reduced as expected," the delegate pointed out the reality and further clarified that each meal of workers is already very simple because salaries are only enough for the minimum living needs.

From that situation, delegates proposed that the Government should pay more attention to the mechanism of transferring prices to transportation, personal income tax, corporate income tax, consumer goods and other essential services.

The delegate said that it is necessary to strengthen inspection of declaration, listing and price adjustment, clarify the responsibilities of intermediaries, and at the same time have measures to deter and promptly rectify the situation of taking advantage of cost fluctuations to unreasonably anchor prices.

Support policies are only truly meaningful when the reduction of input costs is more clearly reflected in people's daily lives," the delegate emphasized.

Delegate Nguyen Duy Thanh (Ca Mau Delegation) said that geopolitical conflicts, especially in the Middle East, are directly affecting energy prices, transportation costs, supply chains and the global financial market.

According to the delegate, the current difficulty does not only come from increased input costs, especially energy, but also lies in the structural limitations of the economy and the business environment.

Therefore, it is necessary to have solutions to unlock capital flows in a substantial way based on thoroughly handling the existing problems of the financial and real estate markets.

According to the delegate, small and medium-sized enterprises face difficulties in technology, management, access to capital sources, and high bank interest rates.

On April 9, the State Bank held a meeting with representatives of 46 commercial banks. Banks have committed to reducing interest rates for people and businesses. That is a very encouraging sign, but in reality, businesses and people reflect that banks only reduce deposit interest rates, and few banks reduce lending interest rates.

From there, the delegate proposed that the State Bank direct banks to fulfill their commitments so that people and businesses have conditions to produce and do business effectively, contribute high to the state budget, contribute to double-digit growth and contribute to the effective implementation of Resolution 68 of the Politburo on private economic development.

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