VietNamNet Bridge – Big Vietnamese gold importers have reassured the public that Hong Kong’s imitation gold cannot enter Vietnam’s market, because they mainly import gold from Switzerland. However, jewelry buyers have been told to be careful when buying products at private shops.

On December 2, Financial Times reported that hundreds of ounces of imitation gold have been traded in Hong Kong over the past year. This is the biggest scandal in Hong Kong in the last few decades.

Tran Trong Quoc Khanh, Director of the Gold Center of the Asia Commercial Bank (ACB) has affirmed that his center only imports gold from Switzerland and Australia. Explaining this, Khanh said that Switzerland is a market that follows very strict rules and frauds in volume or gold quality have never occurred. Meanwhile, Australia is also a big market with big and well known goldsmith companies.

“We will not be foolish and import gold from unknown sources when we absolutely can import gold from prestigious sources at the same prices,” he explained.

Deputy General Director of Phu Nhuan Jewelry Company (PNJ) Nguyen Thi Cuc also said that PNJ mainly imports gold from Switzerland. Especially, after getting deliveries, PNJ always examines the imports with the most reliable method to find out the actual gold content of the importedproducts.

Meanwhile, Sacombank-SBJ admitted it imports gold from different markets. However, Nguyen Van Hai, Deputy General Director of Sacombank-SBJ said the company always verifies the quality of gold, no matter where it imports from.

Experts also do not think that imitation gold may appear among the smuggled products. In principle, when the domestic price is higher than the international price, big Vietnamese businessmen always try to import gold through unofficial channels to sell in the domestic market for profit. However, the experts believe that smugglers would not be foolish to import gold from unreliable sources, because if they import imitation gold they will lose all of their assets.

“I believe that they do not import gold from Hong Kong. Only a consignment of imitation gold would be enough to make them lose their shirt,” an expert said.

However, jewelry buyers have been warned that foreign smugglers will use imitation gold to make jewels to export to Vietnam.

According to VnExpress, a lot of gold shops in Districts 1, 5 and Ba Chieu Market area are displaying foreign made jewelry products. The sellers here say the products are imported from Italy. However, the owner of a shop revealed that most of the products available here are imported from China though unofficial channels.

“It is very difficult to tell the difference between real and imitation products with naked eyes,” he said

Another shop owner said that small shops are mostly selling Hong Kong sourced jewels because the products are cheaper than Italian products. One gram of Italian gold is priced at $38, while one gram of Hong Kong’s jewels is priced at $30.

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