The State Bank of Vietnam has said it will sell gold from its reserves directly to four majority state owned banks from June 3. These banks will then sell gold directly to consumers working on the theory that this will help to bring the local gold price down to be more in line with the world gold price.
This decision came about after a series of gold auctions, in which 47,000 taels of gold were sold to an assortment of banks and gold retailers failed to impact the local gold price to the extent the SBV had hoped.
“This shows that, in addition to market factors such as supply-demand relationships, the possibility of illegal acts, manipulation, price manipulation, and destabilisation of the gold market cannot be ruled out,” Deputy Governor Pham Quang Dung explained in an interview.
The Deputy Governor did not say how much gold would be sold or over what time frame.