HCM CITY — Companies in Vietnam are offering an interesting range of special Tet (Lunar New Year) gifts and services for the holiday.
Nguyen Thi Thanh Lam, deputy director of Fisco Sai Gon Co said her company is selling a gift tray named Ngu Loc. There are many kinds of dried seafood inside including goby, smoked shrimp sausage, cuttle, and anchovy.
All of them are sliced thin, making a suitable gift for friends and family gatherings.
The company also launched a pack of frozen hotpot. Different from other hotpot packs, it weighs one kilogram with enough seafood to serve 10.
On Tet occasion, families usually gather or go travelling together, so the products are tailored to suit.
This year, Vissan Co introduced a new special kind of domestic chicken. It was fed on food mixed with natural herbs about two months before slaughter to give it an aromatic flavour.
Every chicken weighs 1.3-1.5 kg and costs VND104,000 (US$5.2) per kg. The company said the herbal chicken was a trial so there are only 5,000 available.
Another product favoured by housewives is pomelo peel jam. The jam is yellow resembling ginger jam. It has a hot, salty and sweet taste.
The owner of the Thanh Long jam workshop, Ngoc Thuy, said it is made using 10 tonnes of pomelo peel to make one tonne of jam.
The jam price is about VND70,000 ($3.5) per kg. It sells well, especially in Central and Northern provinces because it has a warming effect on cold days, she added.
Farmers in Long An and Hau Giang Province will launch the seedless "Mat Troi Do" (red sun) watermelons in time for the Tet market.
Bui Huu Dung, head of Can Gio District's Agricultural Promotion Department, Long An Province, said this project was a co-operation between the locality and Syngenta Co.
Farmers followed technical standards in cultivation including no use of prohibited chemicals and proper use of legitimate chemical sprays and fertilisers.
This year, weirdly shaped watermelons are one of the extraordinary gifts being sold. Farmers have also launched square watermelons.
According to a seller in An Giang Province, the price of a pair of round-square watermelon is about VND800,000 ($40); a pair of square-square watermelons VND1.2 million ($60).
Another unique product is a picture drawn by professional artists with a music player function launched by AA Art Audio Co in District 11.
Nguyen Hung Son, general director of the company said the components are imported from the Chinese mainland, Taiwan, and Denmark. They cost $150-350 each.
Apart from unique gifts, ochna tree rentals are thriving. Thong who owns an ochna garden in Thu Duc District said he has a lot of orders this year despite the high price of VND10-50 million ($500-2,500) for an 50 year-old tree.
Another ochna garden owner, Hieu, said more than 100 trees worth VND2-15 million ($100-750) each were ordered for rent by customers with the price equivalent to 30-50 per cent of the tree's value. — VNS
