|
Auto sales agents quoting in VND, selling in dollars
The Prime Minister has ordered the heavy punishment of enterprises and individuals quoting commodity prices in dollars, but ‘habit is second nature’, and automobile manufacturers are still violating the law.
The new bottle with old wine
VietNamNet reporters found out that Honda Vietnam and Euro Auto are the only two enterprises which have shifted from quoting prices in dollars to VND.
Huynh Du An, General Director of Euro Auto, said that he has asked sales agents across the country to quote prices in VND to strictly obey the law, though the change is inconvenient.
However, according to Nguyen Trung Tuyen, a salesman of Euro Auto in the north, his price quotations in VND change every day in accordance with the VND/US$ exchange rate fluctuations.
At Honda My Dinh, the salesmen there showed a lot of price quotations with different price levels in VND for different days.
Like the price quotations of Euro Auto, the quoted prices were made based on the dollar sale price applied by Vietcombank on a given day.
Bending the law?
Nguyen Ba Phuong, a salesman of Honda My Dinh, said that the quoted price in VND is just valid for a certain time. The price level in a car purchase contract is different because the VND/US$ exchange rate on the contract day is different from the rate on the price quoting day.
As such, the new way of quoting car prices is just a kind of ‘new bottle with old wine’. It, by nature, is a kind of selling in dollars, and buyers have to bear all the risks caused by dollar price fluctuations.
Commenting about that, Lawyer Tran Dinh Trien, Director of Vi Dan Law Office, former head of the Legal Department of the Vietnam Banking Association, said that quoting in VND based on the VND/US$ exchange rate is an evasion of the law.
Trien said that in this case, the values of commodities are calculated in foreign currencies, not VND. The exchange rate should be used to show the value of the VND in comparison with foreign currencies, while it must not be the way the prices of commodities are determined.
Trieu Quang Thin, Head of the General Affairs Division under the Market Control Agency, said that it is illegal to write down prices in US$ in contracts, and that the agency has asked its affiliates to look into this.
To date, Ford, Toyota, Mercedes-Benz cars are still being quoted in dollars.
Meanwhile, Pham Huu Dat, the salesman of Honda Vinh sales agent in Hanoi, has denied Honda Vietnam’s PR representative’s words that Honda has asked sales agents to shift to quote prices in VND.
Pham Huyen
vietnamnet
|
