The response on the market

The economic reforms have facilitated access to the market for both producers and consumers, leading to a reduction in self-consumption. The proportion of purchases in supplies currently exceeds 65% in rural areas and 95% in urban areas. The commercial commodity systems play an essential role in transmitting the consumption needs to the production units. How are these commodity systems organised - flows in space, stakeholders, types of transport? Their efficiency is evaluated in terms of competition, scale of transactions, price and income formation and quality, using the examples of three commodity systems destined for the domestic market: rice, vegetables, pigs. The market is characterised by a small-scale and competitive structure as well as by relatively short marketing chains, except in the case of the vegetables commodity system between the north and the south where wholesalers control the information on supply and demand. Contractualisation is rare. Traders have low commercial margins (15% for rice, 20% for pork, 45-50% for vegetables), which is a sign of efficiency, although they do not succeed in controlling the numerous risks which weigh on the market: cheating with regard to quality; production deficits or surpluses; non-payment in the event of sale on credit. Moreover, economies of scale can be achieved by regrouping production and improving transport. Vietnam is currently experiencing a certain degree of centralisation of its transactions, with the planning of wholesale and retail markets - which will reduce or even eliminate numerous points of sale - and the development of large volume distribution (the number of supermarkets doubled between 1997 and 2001). These evolutions will have negative consequences on employment for unskilled populations and will be unfavourable to producers, traders and consumers who do not have motorised means of transport; compensatory measures could accompany these developments. Finally, these changes reinforce the necessity for producers to draw together; in this way, they could indicate and control the quality of their products and increase their price bargaining power vis-à-vis the buyers.