VietNamNet Bridge – Financial experts have urged investors to stay calm and not transfer assets to gold or dollars as the East Sea problem can be settled.

Vietnamese investors several days ago rushed to bargain for securities and withdraw their deposits from banks to buy gold and dollars amid the East Sea tensions.

The extreme reactions by the investors to the East Sea tension caused the stock market, which had recovered a bit after a long period of hibernation, to plunge again.

Meanwhile, the gold price soared dramatically and so did the dollar, though the increase was less sharp.

However, analysts have warned that they would lose big money if they continued doing this.

Vietnamese officials, while saying that the Chinese deployment of the drilling rig in the East Sea is a serious violation of Vietnamese sovereignty and international maritime freedom, still believe the problem can be solved in a peaceful way.  

The officials said that Vietnam was trying to settle the dispute peacefully,  and that there was every reason to believe that this path would bring success.

Vu Quang Huy, director of the State Bank of Vietnam’s Foreign Exchange Department, has advised people “to keep calm”.

“We have realized that the gold and dollar price fluctuations did not originate from market supply and demand changes or economic factors, but from speculation and unreasonable predictions,” Huy wrote on the State Bank’s official website.

Huy and Nguyen Thi Hong, director of the Monetary Policy Department, both said that the State Bank of Vietnam was ready to take action to help improve liquidity and sell foreign currencies to stabilize dollar prices if necessary.

An analyst, commenting about the State Bank’s officials’ statements, said that the State Bank is quite capable of doing this, citing a report of the State Bank that foreign exchange reserves had reached a new high of $35 billion.

Le Xuan Nghia, former deputy chair of the National Finance Supervision Council, also commented that people should not panic and bargain away their stock assets.

Nghia said that the world’s financial markets, which includes the stock, foreign exchange and gold markets, has not seen a hint of fluctuation during this period, an indication that the East Sea tensions and the problems in the Vietnamese stock market have in no way affected international investors’ confidence.

The stock market has been stable, gold prices continue following a downward trend, and the foreign exchange market has been stable as well.

When asked about the prospect of the Vietnamese financial markets in the near future, Nghia said there were three reasons to believe the market would regain normal operations.

First, the East Sea problem could be settled peacefully. Second, the international finance market and capital were still heading for Vietnam. Third, the State Bank is capable of intervening in the market.