Twelve producers and distributors in Ho Chi Minh City have pledged toprovide the market with safe and qualified products in line with anagreement they signed with the city’s market monitoring agency onDecember 8, the Saigon Times Daily reported.

The participatingfirms include supermarket chains Big C, Aeon, Citimart and Maximark,Thien Hoa Electronics Center, and other consumer products andelectronics distributors. Hat firm Non Son, Thu Duc rice vermicellifirm, and Binh Minh Gas Ltd. Co. are among the producers joining theprogramme.

The enterprises promise not to store, trade or producebanned and fake products, and the items unsafe and unqualified orviolating intellectual property rights.

The management boards ofPham Van Hai, Ben Thanh, Dan Sinh, Binh Tay, Tan Binh and An Dong wetmarkets also pledge with HCM City authorities to discourage vendors fromselling prohibited and counterfeit products.

Food distributors and producers of the city’s safe food chain programme also clinched deals to consume products of one another.

Inthe middle of last year, HCM City initiated a pilot programme to applyfood management to the process of production, processing anddistribution to ensure food hygiene and safety for consumers.

HuynhLe Thai Hoa, head of the city’s food safety agency, said 45,000 tonnesof vegetables, seafood, livestock and poultry meat and 197 million eggshave been certified as safe and qualified products more than one yearafter the programme was launched.

Interested enterprises shouldregister with the city’s food safety agency to join the programme. Theagency will appraise their products and issue certificates for the itemsmeeting standards.

Information about high-quality products of the programme is available at www.atvstp.org.vn.-VNA