In the first half of this year the department issued licences for six supermarkets and one mall.—Photo tygiavang

HCM CITY (Biz Hub)— HCM City's retail networks, especially modern facilities like shopping malls and supermarkets, have developed rapidly in recent years, according to the local Department of Industry and Trade.

In the first half of this year the department issued licences for six supermarkets and one mall.

Together with the Department of Finance, it also offered on lease 59 lots of public lands for building supermarkets, convenience stores, and price-stabilisation shops.

The city has three wholesale markets, 234 traditional markets, 30 shopping malls, and hundreds of supermarket outlets and convenience stores besides thousands of mom-and-pop stores.

The city was one of the first in the country to set up agricultural wholesale markets and operate them effectively, according to the department.

Under a road map for developing wholesale and retail distribution systems it approved in 2009, the city offers many incentives to attract investors, like rent and tax breaks.

It includes encouraging the setting up of supermarkets and convenience stores in outlying areas, industrial parks, and export processing zones, and creating modern retail facilities near the parks and zones to replace the impromptu markets that spring up there now.

Le Ngoc Dao, deputy director of the department, said the plan is progressing well.

As of the end of June there were 7,317 price-stabilisation shops, the city People's Committee said. There were supermarkets and retail shops in all 24 districts.

Domestically made products account for 90-95 per cent of those sold in supermarkets.

Besides, in the last year city-based retailers opened 35 supermarkets, shopping malls, and convenience stores in 20 southern provinces at a cost of VND750 billion (US$35 million). — VNS