Government requires strict control of gold transactions

According to the Resolution of the regular meeting in April, the Government assessed that the management of the gold market in recent times has been inadequate, with high differences between domestic and international prices. This affects growth, inflation control, and macroeconomic stability.

Therefore, the Government requires the State Bank to implement more timely solutions to manage and strictly control market transactions. This agency needs to immediately handle the situation of price differences between domestic and international prices, as well as smuggling, speculation, and price manipulation.

In fact, this directive has been repeatedly issued by the Government and the Prime Minister to the banking industry in the context of soaring precious metals, despite the operator bidding to increase supply to the market.

This morning, the price of SJC gold bars rose to 92 million VND per tael, the highest ever. The difference between buying and selling prices maintained by businesses is more than 2 million VND.

Domestic gold prices have skyrocketed, so the gap with the world price has also widened, to about 18.5 million VND per tael.

About 6,800 taels of gold bars were purchased by enterprises from the State Bank after 5 bids. This amount accounts for about 8% of the total bids invited by the management agency.

Contrary to expectations of cooling down the precious metal through bidding, prices have continuously reached new peaks and trading has been active. According to experts, to reduce the gap with international prices, the operator needs to sell at prices close to or lower than domestic prices. Because high bidding prices further stimulate people's hoarding psychology, making the goal of bringing it closer to the world difficult to achieve.

Mr. Pham Van Thinh, member of the Economic Committee, believes that if the transaction volume of the points of sale is strictly managed, the situation of gold price manipulation will be avoided. According to him, current technology allows recording the volume of gold sold at stores, so management is not too difficult.

In the Resolution, the Government also requested ministries, branches and localities to closely monitor domestic and international developments to have policy responses and timely remove obstacles for businesses and people. State-managed goods such as electricity, gasoline, medical services, etc. need to carefully assess the impact, roadmap and appropriate adjustment time.