Meeting the needs and interests of consumers plays a decisive role for the existence of businesses in particular and the development of the economy in general. At present, consumers' rights and interests need to be ensured more in order to realize the "dual goals" of Covid-19 prevention-control and socio-economic development.
Business with responsibility
For a long time, businesses’ social responsibility has been superficially conceived via charity activities, issues such as preferential policies for employees, environmental protection policies and commitments on products’ quality or safety to the market.
.jpeg)
Illegal goods destroyed at provincial Market Surveilliance Sub-Department
Vinamit Joint Stock Company is one of top enterprises in the post-harvest agricultural food processing industry. Nguyen Lam Vien, General Director of the company said that Covid-19 pandemic was complicated, affecting the trade of agriculture, forestry and fishery in Vietnam as well as in many countries around the world. But the group’s export turnover still achieved good results. According to Mr. Vien, for organic agricultural enterprises, organic certification will open the door for them to enter North American, Japanese and EU markets where there are very high and strict requirements for health, nutritional and environmental values to people. Moreover, the trend of organic food is now very popular in developed countries around the world. For better development, domestic organic agricultural enterprises need to focus on clean products with nutrients from nature that are beneficial for customers ‘health and the environment.
Along with Vinamit, Ba Huan Joint Stock Company is also a typical example for businesses that are responsible for the society when producing clean agricultural products. According to Pham Thi Huan, CEO of the company, the current demand for consuming clean and safe agricultural products is very great, the development of organic agricultural products will help agriculture reach sustainable development, providing safe, high quality agricultural products, minimizing negative impacts on the environment and ensuring benefits for the whole society.
Joining hands for consumers ‘interests
In fact, along with enterprises that have researched towards sustainable production and consumption, trying to promote social responsibility, there are still many enterprises with unhealthy business-production activities, harming consumers' interests. There are many acts violating consumers' interests such as organizing false advertising, supplying goods with poor quality, especially making corrupt use of Covid-19 pandemic to speculate for profit.
In Binh Duong, according to the figure released by the Steering Committee 389, the province’s sectors and departments last year checked 14,229 commercial cases (up 29.5% over the same period), detected 7,812 wrong cases (up 11.9% compared to the same period). In particular, there was a case that made public opinion very dissatisfied when trading in poor quality medical masks, selling medical masks at very high prices during the pandemic period in order to gain illicit profits together with others of trading in dirty food with banned substances ... These are the clearest evidence of irresponsible business behavior to consumers and society.
According to Nguyen Van Ban, Chairman of provincial Consumer Protection Association, violations related to the traditional commercial method were the trade of smuggled, counterfeit and poor-quality goods, speculation, price increases, and no invoices provided, resulting in the lack of the foundation for consumers to complain. Besides, there were also many violations of e-commerce.
Over the past time, provincial Consumer Protection Association organized many activities to protect consumers' rights and interests against trade fraud, contributing to building up a civilized and healthy consumption environment. This year, the Vietnamese Consumer Rights Day 2021 (March 15) took place amid the complicated development of Covid-19 pandemic, so main activities were to hung banners, slogans, and deliver leaflets; build a special subject on propagandizing responsible business activities towards sustainable consumption... According to Mr. Ban, businesses will actually achieve practical results only when well performing and fully ensuring consumers’ rights and interests. This will contribute to increasing businesses ‘reputation as well as increasing consumers' trust in businesses in the market.
Reported by Thanh Hong-Translated by K.T
