Vietnam to release draft decree on gold trading in April

Vietnam will release a draft decree on gold-trading this month, Nguyen Van Binh, the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV)’s deputy governor was quoted by the local newswire CafeF as saying.

The central bank has prepared a draft Decree to replace Decree No 174/1999/ND-CP on local gold-trading activities and will release it to collect opinions from ministries, industries, commercial banks and gold traders in April, before sending it for approval from the Government in Q2/2011, the Deputy Governor specified.

Binh noted that gold regulation in Vietnam has been decentralized, making it very hard to regulate.

The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) is only responsible for regulating material gold export-imports, bullion manufacturing, gold deposit and lending activities at local credit institutions, and regulating gold in the country’s forex reserves, he pointed out.

Meanwhile, other activities including jewelry trading, manufacturing, processing; and bullion trading in the free market are regulated by local Planning and Development Departments; gold market control by the Ministry of Industry and Trade; gold-export export by Ministry of Finance, gold quality regulation by Ministry of Science and Technology, the Deputy Governor added.

Besides, there has been a lack of specific regulations on gold manufacturing, trading, exporting-importing, Binh pressed.

The Deputy Governor also noted that Saigon Jewelry Holding Company (SJC)’s bullion has almost all functions of a second currency in Vietnam: unit of account, store of value, medium of exchange, free circulation, conversion and trade, adding that SJC bullion often accounts for 80% of total market share in Vietnam and is globally accepted, he added.

Therefore, it should be treated as a special commodity which is closely regulated by the central bank, Binh suggested. – Stoxplus.com

Tags: vietnam gold, Vietnam gold market, Vietnam gold prices