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State Bank to curb illegal dollar trades
The State Bank of Viet Nam will crack down on the foreign exchange black market in HCM City to keep exchange rates under control, an official says.
Nguyen Hoang Minh, Deputy Director of the central bank's HCM City branch, said the move followed a directive from the central bank governor on January 4 to step up monitoring of the illegal forex trade.
Last year, the branch and the city police uncovered 37 cases of illegal trade in foreign currencies and listing of commodities prices in foreign currencies, he said.
Offenders in 36 of the cases were fined a total of more than VND2 billion (US$105,000).
Together with the Market Watch Division, the branch uncovered a further 16 such cases and fined them VND400 million.
"The foreign exchange rate on the black market remains much higher than at banks since demand from importers always spikes ahead of Tet (The Lunar New Year)," Minh said.
To control the black market, especially for US dollars, the central bank needed to have effective intervention measures like selling and swapping foreign currencies, he said.
The SBV should allow banks to sell foreign currencies to more categories of customers and give priority to selling dollars for import of essential goods, he added.
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