December 9, 2011

Abbott, from the beginning of this week, has started to increase its imported milk products' prices by 9% in Vietnamese market, the Saigon Times newspaper reported.

Vu Gia Khuyen, director of 3A Pharma Co., Ltd., attributed the price hike to the local inflation rate at about 18% for the whole year and the higher input costs caused by the volatile import market.

"Actually, we had managed to maintain the retail price despite the sharply rising cost of imported materials in previous months but now we have no choice but to increase the price like many other companies," Khuyen was quoted as saying.

Khuyen said the prices of dairy materials in Europe have risen, rejecting the information that the world market's prices have continuously decreased.

Earlier this year, Abbott also raised the selling prices as a result of surging foreign exchange rates while other producers had increased the selling prices, Khuyen added.

Milk manufacturers now tend to make price hike without prior notice, said a milk vendor in Ho Chi Minh City, adding that the prices of Abbott's milk products will increase even higher.

Regarding other brands, the newspaper said that the South Korean XO products would be on sale with new prices in the next days.

Similarly, a representative of Lotte Mart asserted that his enterprise had received a price hike notice from three brands of Abbott, Enfa and XO. He confirmed that Abbot products rose by 9-10%, the highest rate, compared to around 5-6% for Enfa and XO's.

The representative of Lotte Mart also reported that his system will sell out milk products in stock at the current prices and only apply new prices for new arrivals.