|
Businesses: We will have to shut down if the dollar shortage cannot be eased
Hundreds of emails have been sent to VietNamNet’s Vietnam Economic Forum, complaining about the sharp dollar price increases. The businessmen complain that if the current situation cannot be improved, they will have to shut down.
Nguyen Tran Le (leanh.ha...@gmail.com), Director of a private import company, wrote that since the dollar prices have been increasing over the last few months, the company has lost all its accumulated profit since the beginning of the year. Meanwhile, the company may face other big losses at the end of the year, the time for the company to make payments for import deals.
“I cannot understand how the black market can exist in such an open air. I do not know if there is another country in the world like Vietnam? If you sell dollars to banks, you will get 19,500 dong per dollar, but if you want to buy dollars from banks, you will have to pay much higher at 21,500 dong per dollar,” Le complained.
“If the existing problems cannot be improved by Tet (February 2011), we may have to shut down our business,” he continued.
Tien phong newspaper reported that at a recent meeting with the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Deputy General Director of Petrolimex, Nguyen Quang Kien, stated that the corporation plans to import about 9.1 million tons of petroleum products in 2011. The demand for foreign currencies for imports in 2011 will not decrease, but will increase. From now to the end of the year alone, Petrolimex will need over $800 million to import petroleum products.
“Petrolimex has sent a document to the Prime Minister and Ministry of Finance, asking the government to instruct banks to provide foreign currencies, or the situation will become serious,” Kien said.
Sources guessed that because of the warning, on the afternoon of December 2, leaders of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, State Bank and some petroleum importers had an urgent meeting to discuss the solutions to the problems.
Thinhdv, a reader from thinh...@gmail.com, wrote that the Electricity of Vietnam (EVN) needs dollars to import equipments to implement power projects. According to him, the expenses for imported equipment account for 30-40 percent of the total investment capital. Therefore, this could be a heavy burden on the EVN’s shoulders.
The problem is that while EVN has to pay dollars to import equipments, it receives Vietnam dong from electricity users. If the Government does not have any measures to support power plant investors, it will be very difficult to carry out big projects capitalized at hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars.
Where have dollars gone?
A reader from seadrag...@yahoo.com believes that the solution to the current problem is very simple. The government and the State Bank of Vietnam need to tighten control over foreign currency trading at joint stock banks. According to the reader, joint stock banks have “shaken hands” with foreign exchange points to push the prices up in order to make profit.
“The State Bank has pumped dollars to joint stock banks several times, but the situation still cannot be improved. Joint stock banks always answer clients that they do not have dollars to sell. Where have the dollars that the central bank provided to the banks gone?” the reader questioned.
Sharing the same view, Baccovn (bacc...@gmail.com), stressed that the dollar shortage will lead to the sharp price increases of goods, and ordinary people will be the biggest sufferers, because they lack information and tools to protect themselves.
“We are an import company, and we have to buy dollars every week to import goods. Though the official exchange rate is 19,500 dong per dollar, we have to pay 2000 dong more for every dollar we purchase. If we do not accept the conditions, we will never be able to purchase dollars,” he said.
Nguyen Ngoc Trai (trai2009...@yahoo.com.vn), noted that the dual exchange rate scheme only exists in Vietnam.
Ngoc Ha
vietnamnet
|
