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Enterprises ask for more gold import quotas
A lot of gold companies have revealed that they have proposed the State Bank of Vietnam to grant more quotas for gold imports, saying that more imports would help increase the domestic supply and ease the “gold fever”.
An executive of the Saigon Jewelry Company (SJC) said that in August, the company imported two tons of gold, but the volume was just enough to satisfy the demand on the peak days, when the purchasing power was very high. He said that about 10,000 taels of gold, or 375 kilos of gold were traded every day last week.
Therefore, SJC has decided to ask for more quotas to import gold to increase the supply and narrow the gap between the domestic and the world’s prices. This is also the goal targeted by the State Bank of Vietnam.
In fact, the demand for gold has been eased, and the market on the first day of the week was less bustling than the days of the previous week. Therefore, the executive said SJC would import gold at reasonable moments, and it would not import gold immediately at any costs.
Deputy General Director of the Phu Nhuan Jewelry Company (PNJ), Nguyen Thi Cuc, has also said that the company also proposed for more quotas to import gold late last week. To date, the bank has not got reply from the State Bank yet.
However, Cuc thinks that it is now not as difficult as previously to ask for the permission to import gold, since the State Bank has announced that it will allow companies to import gold on the demand, in order to narrow the gap between the world’s and the domestic prices.
PNJ said it sold 3000 taels a day last week, the volume which was double that in the previous week. Sometimes the company could not carry gold quickly enough to the shops, which then led to the temporary halt of sale.
Nguyen Ngoc Que Chi, General Director of Sacombank-SBJ, also said that the amount of gold sold in previous days was very big, while the amount of gold the company purchased was low, and the company needs to import gold to increase the supply.
Therefore, Sacombank, the mother company of SBJ has also proposed the central bank to allow importing more gold. It has got the quota to import one ton of gold.
SBJ has reported that it sold 20,000 taels of gold a day last week. However, the demand seems to decrease with the trading volume on the first day of the week at just 6000 taels.
However, director of a big goldsmith company said that gold imports alone may not help narrow the gap between the world’s and the domestic prices. The domestic price on August 29 was higher by 1.2 million dong per tael than the world’s price. The demand for gold has been increasing steadily in the world market, which has forced partners to balance their trade and led to the delay in getting gold imports. It also takes Vietnamese enterprises some more time to process gold before they launch the products into the market.
The executive said that Vietnam is spending a big volume of foreign currencies to import gold, and that gold import should not be applied as the only measure to ease the gold fever. The State Bank of Vietnam needs to apply a lot of comprehensive measures to stabilize the macro economy and restore the confidence of people on the value of the dong, thus helping ease the demand for hoarding gold.
The gold price unexpectedly decreased by 600,000 dong per tael earlier this year, on August 29. At 9.50 am of the day, the prices quoted by SJC were 46.8-47.2 million dong per tael (Purchase and sale prices).
vietnamnet, TBKTSG
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