The report showed that Vietnamese purchased 17.20 tonnes of gold in the first quarter of 2023, down by 2.40 tonnes compared to the same period last year.

Similarly, local bar and coin demand dropped by 10% year-on-year from 14.0t in Q1 2022 to 12.6t in Q1 2023, and jewellery demand decreased by 18% year-on-year from 5.6t in Q1 2022 to 4.6t in Q1 2023. 

Shaokai Fan, Head of Asia-Pacific (ex-China) & Global Head of Central Banks at the World Gold Council, said: “The decline in jewellery gold demand is partly due to strong base effects – Q1 2022 was the strongest first quarter for local jewellery demand since 2007. Jewellery buying in Q1 2023 was healthy during the Lunar New Year celebrations, before tailing off in February and March as the gold price rose.”

According to the report, worldwide gold demand reached 1,174 tonnes in the first quarter of this year, an increase of one percent compared to the same period last year.

Louise Street, Senior Markets Analyst at the World Gold Council, said: “The mixed picture for Q1 highlights how gold’s diverse sources of demand underpin its role and performance as a global asset. Growth in some regions offset weakness in others as different economic forces and demand drivers played out in the global gold market. One commonality was that different types of investors looked to gold as a store of value in uncertain times."

PV