Huynh Trung Khanh, Vice President of the Vietnam Gold Trading Association, was quoted by Reuters earlier this week as saying that Vietnam will allow gold imports later this year. He has since made overtures to correct the record, telling local media he only expected this to happen but that he was not aware of a decision from the State Bank either way.
Of note, there was a similar situation last month whereby Reuters reported that the state power provider had asked a key Apple supplier to reduce its power consumption, however, the state power provider later came out and said this wasn’t accurate.
It should be noted that government ministries and departments and state-owned enterprises generally do not respond to requests for comment from foreign media. With this in mind, a simple solution might be to reform this practice.
That aside, these reports could have a huge impact locally. The gold price in Vietnam is well above the world gold price due to the State Bank choking off the supply back in 2012. It’s currently working to bring those prices down by selling gold at below market value from its gold reserves, however, the temporary nature of this fix seems to have only spurred demand–there are reports of long queues to buy gold all over the country. Increasing imports would be a more permanent fix and could significantly impact local consumer sentiment.