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Inward remittances surge, but head to black market
Overseas remittances to Vietnam soared in the first nine months of the year, but Vietnamese receivers preferred selling dollars to the black market instead of local lenders.
Inward overseas remittance via Sacombank hit $935million in the first nine months of the year, up 40 percent on year, said the lender, adding that it targets an overseas remittance of US$1.2 billion to the country.
As of September 30, overseas remittance via DongA Bank’s Overseas Remittance Co was $900 million and is expected to hit $1.2billion in 2010, beating the year-target of $1.1 billion, said Trinh Hoai Nam, the company’s Deputy Director.
Pham Thuy Nga, manager of Vietcombank’s retail banking department said the lender achieved $935 million inward overseas remittance in the first nine months and estimated $1.3 billion this year.
But bankers revealed that only a few of dollars transferred from overseas were sold to local lenders.
During the last two weeks, dollar prices have been volatile in the free market and about VND700 higher than those listed at local banks, discouraging the public to sell dollars back to lenders, Tran Cong Binh, Director of ACB’s Western Union, said.
Previously, a lot of dollars remitted from overseas went to the country’s banking system in August and September as dollar prices were the same at both official and unofficial market.
Overseas remittance in the last quarter will be higher than those in the previous two quarters, said Nguyen Hoang Minh, Deputy Director of the Ho Chi Minh City Office of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), adding that overseas Vietnamese often send dollar to Vietnam during the year-end and lunar Tet holiday.
In the local forex market, dollar bid and ask prices at gold shops edged up VND110 to VND20,110 and VND20,160.
Vietinbank and Eximbank also boosted up its dollar’s bid to the cap of VND19,500, representing an accelerating demand for the greenback and the lenders’ dollar tension.
tuoitrenews, SGTT, SBV
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