Hanoi gold shops seek profits through speculation

Several gold shops have attempted to hoard gold from local banks in Hanoi for speculation, according to the Ministry of Public Security.

A gold shop in Hanoi. Photo: Pham Hung/The Hanoi Times

The ministry said on June 30 that Hanoi police had found that some gold shops were circumventing the gold purchase limit by sending their staff to buy gold at bank branches.

On June 17, Hanoi Police and Hanoi Market Surveillance found a gold shop in Thanh Xuan District's Nhan Chinh Ward reselling 14 taels of SJC gold that its four employees had bought from banks.  

At the time of the raid, the owner was buying a tael of SJC gold from an individual seller for VND81 million (US$3,183) by wire transfer without a receipt.

According to police, the shop did not have a license to trade SJC gold bars, and the owner was unable to say where he had obtained them.

Police then confiscated one tael of SJC gold and 280 gold and silver rings for investigation.

On Ha Trung Street in Hoan Kiem District, an individual was caught selling one tael of SJC gold to a local shop.

The recent raids show that gold traders are profiteering from gold hoarding by buying it from banks (only banks are currently allowed to sell SJC-branded gold in Vietnam) and selling it at higher prices, said Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Dac Tai, head of the Monetary Security Unit of Hanoi's Economic Police Division.

"Their actions defeat the central bank's idea of stabilizing the gold market," he said.

On June 3, four state-owned banks, namely Vietcombank, BIDV, Agribank, and Vietinbank, and gold trading companies such as SJC, PNJ, and Bao Tin Minh Chau, began selling gold bullion to stabilize the domestic gold market.

The gold market had been driven up as people sought safe havens following volatile developments in the global market.

The gold selling price at Vietcombank, Agribank, and Vietinbank today (July 1) is set at VND76.98 million ($3,025) per tael.