VietNamNet Bridge – The State Bank of Vietnam has decided to allow enterprises to import gold to make jewelries domestically, a long awaiting decision to help ease the thirst for materials.

The local branches of the State Bank will grant import licenses to enterprises after considering their demands.

The decision has been described as determining the survival of jewelry makers, who keep complaining about the short supply of materials for a long time.

The jewelry enterprises said that the available supply sources cannot satisfy the demand, and if the State Bank does not allow importing gold, they would have to seek materials from unofficial channels. If so, they may buy smuggled gold.

However, they still cannot sigh with relief now, even though the decision they expected has been released. The State Bank will only allow the enterprises which can meet certain requirements to import gold.

According to Nguyen Quang Huy, Director of the Foreign Exchange Management Department under the State Bank of Vietnam, to apply for the import license, enterprises need to present their business plans, show the State Bank’s certificates on having sufficient conditions to make gold jewelries.

The enterprises to import gold materials can import no more than 100 kilos for every consignment.

Nguyen Hoang Minh, Deputy Director of the HCM City branch of the State Bank of Vietnam on September 11 said no enterprise has been granted the license for gold import.

According to Minh, in previous years, the licensed importers “shared the quotas” with other enterprises, which made it very difficult to control the imports to be sure that the imports could be used for the right purposes.

Therefore, the State Bank has decided to apply a new management method. Only when it is certain that the jewelries are made of the imported consignments of gold, will it allow importing the next consignments.

The enterprises which “can meet certain requirements to import gold” are understood as the big enterprises. The big enterprises are not allowed to re-sell the import gold materials to other enterprises.

This means that the State Bank does not care about the gold demand from smaller enterprises. Where can they buy gold materials from?

According to Huynh Trung Khanh, Advisor to the World Gold Council WGC in Vietnam, Vietnam needs over 10 tons of gold material every year to make jewelries.

Nguyen Van Dung, Chair of the HCM City Fine Arts and Jewelry Association, said 90 percent of jewelry makers in HCM City are small enterprises. If they cannot buy materials from bigger enterprises, they would have to use the gold materials with unclear sources, which would lend a hand to smugglers and make the market chaotic.

Dung said his association would send a document to the State Bank to request the watchdog agency to think of the solutions on providing materials to the enterprises which cannot import gold directly.

Analysts have warned that the gold importers would need dollars in big quantities, while the big demand at some certain times would put a pressure on the foreign exchange.

However, Dung has denied the threat, saying that enterprises would import 10-50 kilos of gold each time. Therefore, the dollar demand would be not big enough to influence the foreign exchange rate.

NLD