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It’s toy money, not counterfeit money: SBV
After making inspection tours of shops that sell imitation bank notes for toys, the HCM City branch of the State Bank of Vietnam concluded that the products sold at the shops were not copies of banknotes. The HCM City branch has reported the case to the State Bank of Vietnam.
Director of the HCM City branch of the State Bank of Vietnam Ho Huu Hanh told local newspaper VnExpress on April 24 in the morning that the branch found out from the inspection tours that the products were just toy money of small size. The banknotes being sold at shops were not copies of real money.
“These are just toy money, which cannot be called counterfeit money,” Hanh concluded.
However, Article No 3 of Decision 130 by the prime minister on protecting Vietnamese currencies promulgated on June 30, 2003 stipulates that it is strictly prohibited to copy Vietnamese currencies for any purposes without permission in advance by the State Bank of Vietnam in writing.
The HCM City Market Control Sub-department believes that trading this toy money is a violation of the law.
Meanwhile, local newspaper Tien phong quoted Nguyen Hoang Minh, Deputy Director of the HCM City branch of the State Bank of Vietnam, as saying that printers and sellers of the ‘money’ will be strictly punished.
Minh said that printing and trading VND, even in the form of toys and in small sizes, should be considered a violation of the laws. The violators may have practicing licences revoked, or be subject to criminal prosecution if the behaviour can be proved to have had the intention of threatening Vietnamese currency security.
Since the beginning of April 2009, several markets in HCM City have been selling counterfeit VND as toys for children. The ‘banknotes’ are made of two kinds of materials, hard cotton paper or plastic. The ‘banknotes’ made of cotton paper are small, like matchboxes, and have the face values of VND5,000, VND10,000, VND100,000 and VND200,000.
VietNamNet, TP, VNE
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