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Vietnamese buying less gas after price hike

Le Thi Anh Man, deputy general director of Saigon Petro, said thecompanys sales had dropped about 30-40 percent since the increasein gasoline prices.Though deputy director of Petrolimex Region II Company Nguyen VanCanh said his client stations in HCMC were still buying the sameamount of gas, he admitted that sales in the provinces, wherepeople are generally poorer, had fallen 15 percent since the pricehike.M., a salesman at a Petrolimex station in Ho Chi Minh CitysDistrict 3, said the number of customers at his station haddeclined noticeably and that they were buying far lower quantitiesof gas per trip.Customers used to buy at least two liters of gas for theirmotorbikes but now most of them asked for only VND20,000 (US$1.19)worth of gas, he said, adding that some even insisted on one literexactly (VND19,000), demanding VND1,000 in change.Going electric Kieu Tien, a telephone operator at the HCMC information directory,said she just bought a new electric bicycle to ride to the office,even thought the trip already took her 30 minutes by motorbike.She said it used to cost her VND35,000 to fill up her motorbikeevery four days but after the gas hike on Monday she had to payVND53,000 for the same amount of gas.After riding her electric bike to work for sales have jumped 50 percent as the store is now sellingeight bikes per day.Two shops selling Asama brand electric bikes in District 3 and TanBinh District said they ve sold out of popular bike models and manycustomers had paid deposits for bikes that were on order.Asama is a popular brand from Taiwan.According to Asamas Vietnam sales department, the companymanufactures 250-300 electric bikes in the country every day, butthe number was not enough to meet the needs of the Vietnamesemarket since the gas hike.Secondhand bicycles are also selling quicker than before.Many shops on Bui Huu Nghia Street in Binh Thanh District arerefurbishing old bicycles to meet the new demand for gas-freevehicles.A bike shop owner named Luong said average secondhand bicycles costonly VND250,000, while igher quality Japanese bikes could cost upto VND1 million.He said his customers were mainly average-income blue-collarworkers who didnt need brand new bikes.Catching the bus