A series of businesses in Ho Chi Minh City who won the contract to provide medical gloves are “demanding” to increase the selling price, suspending the signed contract because of losses, causing the hospital to “cry a river”.
Hospital complained of difficulty because businesses demanded price increases
Ho Chi Minh City Department of Health has just submitted a report to the Ministry of Health, the People’s Committee of Ho Chi Minh City and relevant departments and sectors on the production, supply and use of medical rubber gloves in Ho Chi Minh City.
According to the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Health, a series of businesses manufacture or import and supply medical rubber gloves such as Mai Viet Anh Trading Service Joint Stock Company (Tan Binh District), Merufa Joint Stock Company (Phu District). Nhuan), Nam Tin Manufacturing and Trading Company Limited (Binh Tan District), Ho Chi Minh City Medical Import and Export Joint Stock Company (YTECO) all proposed to allow adjustment of the selling price of medical gloves in the purchase contract. sold to hospitals that won previous bids.
In the case of not being able to import raw materials, long production material delivery time, rising raw material prices or prolonged import orders, the above-mentioned enterprises propose to terminate the contract to adjust price accordingly.
Some businesses even ask medical units to pay immediately for the sale of medical gloves before …, because these units often pay slowly.
Representatives of hospitals and medical facilities in Ho Chi Minh City said that the use of medical gloves for medical examination and treatment, especially Covid-19 prevention and control, increased compared to 2019. However, the number of gloves according to sales contracts with previous winning companies is not enough to meet demand. Therefore, the slow supply of goods by these enterprises, asking for an increase in selling prices, and asking for adjustment of the signed contract price has caused many difficulties for medical examination and treatment activities.
Manufacturing enterprises: Losing money to guarantee is more than losing money
Covid-19 has caused many damage and is still unpredictable, so raising awareness of epidemic prevention is the responsibility of the whole political system and each citizen.
Why is it that while the frontline hospitals and medical facilities have to “struggle with” to perform 2 tasks of examining, treating and preventing Covid-19 at the same time, businesses are taking steps to Hard as above?
Find out by the reporter of the Investment Newspaper, many domestic manufacturing enterprises have sent documents to the authorities to explain the matter.
Specifically, the General Director of Merufa, Mr. Luu Tien Cao signed Document No. 539 sent to the Department of Health of Ho Chi Minh City for explanation, by Covid-19, Merufa had to increase production to meet demand, but the price of medical gloves. economy continuously increases day by day, hour by hour. If the bid at the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020 for the medical glove item is 869 VND to 1,140 VND / pair, up to now, the market price has reached 2,450 VND to 2,650 VND / pair. It is forecasted that by 2021, the price of medical gloves may increase by 15-30% if Covid-19 cannot be controlled.
Merufa is a manufacturing company, so it depends heavily on latex and nitrile materials. The supply of these raw materials was scarce, so the Company had to buy at high prices and had to pay in full in November 2020. Currently, Merufa has to provide more than 7.8 million pairs of medical gloves (priced at VND 880 to VND 1,140 / pair) and more than 1.3 million pairs of surgical gloves (priced at VND 2,688 to VND 3,500 / pair) under the contract. signed with the hospital.
According to Merufa, the price of raw materials increased, while the selling price to hospitals was too low, so with two items to be provided under signed contracts, the company would lose about 12.8 billion dong, while the amount Contract performance guarantee must not exceed VND 800 million.
“If there are no support measures from the Department of Health, then it is likely that Marufa will be forced to stop the performance and lose the contract performance guarantee”, stated in Marufa’s document.
From there, Merufa offered to pay off the delivery; price increase adjustment for the remaining stock from December 2020 and must be paid within 15 days; or discontinue supply and re-bid. Even this enterprise also proposed to study and supplement the bidding documents as prescribed: in case the market price increases continuously and prolonged, “if the bidder has a lower winning bid than the general market price. from 20% or more and last at least 3 months, the bidder is entitled to increase the price for the remaining quantity ”.
Similarly, with the reason that latex rubber and nitrile has increased and been scarce, leading to an increase in product prices, while the price under signed contracts is low, Nam Tin Production and Trade Co., Ltd. (a manufacturer of gloves) medical hand) said that the Company suffered losses in contracts currently provided to hospitals that had won the bid before the outbreak of Covid-19. This company offered to support the price of medical gloves to reduce losses and have capital for production.
Importing enterprises: Difficult because the source of goods
Not only domestic manufacturers, enterprises importing medical gloves also “demand” to adjust the bidding ceiling prices.
Specifically, YTECO has Document No. 0631/2020 / YTC / MAR dated November 13, 2020 to the Department of Health of Ho Chi Minh City for explanation: before the time of the Covid-19 epidemic, YTECO had imported the source of medical gloves. from Thailand to participate in the bidding, supply for a number of medical units in Ho Chi Minh City and have provided the full amount under the signed contract.
Currently, the Thai supplier said that the factory is overloaded due to the increasing demand for orders and cannot supply the same price as the orders imported by YTECO. The import price of medical gloves is now 3 times higher than the ceiling price of domestic units inviting bids and Thai suppliers only receive new orders in early January 2021. As a result, YTECO cannot continue importing goods for domestic supply.
According to this enterprise, only when the departments of Ho Chi Minh City review the bidding ceiling price, shorten the bid invitation time and provide one-time, remove the discount terms (because businesses have to close the application and imported once to have enough supplies), YTECO “will continue to contact the supplier, search and be ready to import when there is a source of goods and supply to the medical facilities …”.
Similarly, Mai Viet Anh Trading and Service Joint Stock Company said that since February 2020, medical glove prices have been continuously increasing and fluctuating day by day due to increased production materials and scarcity, delayed importation due to Covid-19. Since then, the factory that the Company is importing is lacking in production materials, so the goods are delivered late, extending the delivery time. Mai Viet Anh’s orders were placed from July 2020, so it was also delayed and prolonged, causing this business to lose stock and not be able to supply domestic hospitals.
Up to this point, the factory where Mai Anh Viet Company is importing goods has not accepted orders, because the world order of medical gloves is too large, must give priority to countries that are severely affected by Covid-19. .
Mai Viet Anh Company also “coal” faced many financial difficulties, when the product price increased continuously, but still had to maintain delivery to the hospital at the very low winning price since then. “We want to keep our reputation with the hospital to continue to attend (bid – PV) when the situation stabilizes … We hope to have the leadership and orientation of the Department of Health so that the business can find a direction to open and develop again after Covid-19, not in the group that was dissolved after Covid-19 “, the document of Mai Viet Anh Company expressed.
After receiving recommendations from businesses, it is known that the Department of Health of Ho Chi Minh City is … petitioning the Department of Industry and Trade of Ho Chi Minh City to consider solving difficulties in importing materials for the production of rubber gloves. consider and limit the export of medical rubber gloves in the face of domestic scarcity; propose the Department of Planning and Investment of Ho Chi Minh City to consider and guide medical units related to the price increase of glove supply companies, termination of contracts, not participating in supply bidding …
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Red alert from fraud in manufacturing and trading medical gloves
The Covid-19 epidemic broke out and the demand for medical gloves increased sharply, while the supply was scarce, so there were many frauds in the production and trading of this item.
Typically, on December 3, at Cat Lai port (Ho Chi Minh City), the Anti-Smuggling Control Team in the South and Saigon Port Area 1 Customs Branch checked 2 containers of one enterprises discovered 1,070 cartons without labels containing all kinds of rubber gloves, goods in bulk, crumpled, dirty, musty, no brand …, suspected of being used medical gloves.
Previously, in November 2020, the Ho Chi Minh City police arrested and detained Nguyen Khanh Nguyen, the representative of Boowoo One Member Limited Company, on charges of “fraud and appropriation of property”. According to the investigation, taking advantage of the scarce medical glove market, Nguyen tricked a foreign partner into signing a contract to order 10 million boxes of medical gloves with a total value of 59 million USD. The partner transferred more than 2.5 million USD in advance and asked for sample delivery, Nguyen did not deliver and evade.
In August 2020, Ho Chi Minh City police also arrested Thach Thi Hoa, Director of TTH Equipment Manufacturing – Trading Co., Ltd. and many other subjects because of buying used medical gloves, gloves. hand poor quality then repackaged famous brands and sold to the market. The functional forces seized more than 2.3 million fake gloves worth over 3 billion VND; 10 sacks containing medical protective gear; 3,400 boxes of medical gloves; 700 cardboard boxes with a picture of medical gloves; 500 kg of raw materials for medical gloves without labels; 400 cases of medical gloves and many famous fake label stamps.
