|
Rising gold price affects wedding plans
The gold price jumped to 30 million dong and then to 30.3 million dong per tael on the afternoon of September 22. The prices hikes worry engaged couples and their families, but they remain undetered.
On September 22, Hoa, came to the SJC shop in Hanoi to buy a set of jewelry as a wedding gift for her daughter. Hoa told VnExpress reporters that she was wavering between a 0.3 tael bracelet and a 0.5 tael bracelet. She admitted the sharp gold price increases have affected her family’s budget, but she must still buy the jewelry, because a wedding is the most important event in anyone’s life.
Finally, Hoa chose a 0.5 tael necklace, a 0.3 tael bracelet and two 0.1 tael rings.
Another middle-aged customer at the shop noted that, when her first daughter got married in 2008, buying jewelry was not a big problem, because the gold price was just 16.5 million dong per tael. Now she must think carefully about what to buy for her second daughter, because gold has soared to 30 million per tael.
“If I purchase the same volume of jewelry, the sum of money I have to pay will be double,” she complained.
The gold price has soared by 2.5 million dong per tael since July 30. The price made a new record when it climbed to 30.3 million dong per tael yesterday afternoon, after it broke the 30 million dong threshold last Friday. The world’s price is approaching $1300 per ounce, just as gold experts previously warned.
Representative of Bao Tin Minh Chau, a big brand in Hanoi, explained that purchasing power has been rising steadily over the last month, since the wedding season began. The company can sell 30-50 taels of gold daily, the same as previous wedding seasons, even though gold is now at its highest level in history. The representative believes that sales will climb until Tet.
A SJC Hanoi staff member agreed that demand had not fallen this wedding season, despite high inflation and high gold prices. “The gold price sometimes jumped too rapidly, which made people hesitate to buy jewelry. However, they always come back to the gold shop.”
“People have realized that the gold price has been climbing steadily and there is no signs of a slowdown. Therefore, they would rather buy gold as soon as possible,” she added.
Still “gold fever”, to some extent, has influenced purchases. “Last year, gold bracelets weighing 0.5-1 taels sold very well. Now people tend to purchase lighter items, 0.3-0.5 taels in weight,” an SJC representative maintained.
SJC Hanoi has also launched jewelry products with lighter weights. In previous years, a set of jewelry weighted 1.5 taels on average, while customers nowadays prefer sets weighing up to 1.2 taels.
Meanwhile, in HCM City, gold shop owners all complain of few customers.
Dung, one owner, revealed that jewelry items are selling very slowly. “Since gold prices have increased too sharply, only those people with high demand buy jewelry now. We earn our living on foreign currency exchange rather than gold trading,” he acknowledged.
According to Dung, when gold was cheaper, a lot of people wanted to purchase jewelry to wear, but nowadays “no one would spend tens of millions of dong to buy a bracelet just to wear.”
Thanh, another gold shop owner, has sold less than ten sets of wedding jewelry this week.
Predictions of continued gold price increases have worried many people, including couples who are not going to get married this year. “We will get married next year, but we have decided to purchase wedding rings right now, because we fear that prices would go up further,” a girl commented.
Meanwhile, some couples have decided to rent jewelry items for their wedding day. Nam and Lan, two workers in Tan Tao Industrial Zone in HCM City, agreed to buy only wedding rings and rent other gold items to wear. “We must spend 20 million dong on a jewelry set, which is unaffordable for us,” Nam admitted.
vietnamnet, VnExpress
|
