The amount of capital hoarded by people must be high

Cao Sy Kiem, former Governor of the State Bank, agreed that the amount of capital hoarded by people must be high, but was not sure about the figure of $60 billion.

Kiem said he doesn’t think the $60 billion is purely cash. “If Vietnam had such a big amount of cash, it would easily mobilize capital for use,” he said, adding that the capital is from many different sources, and is necessary to exploit in different ways. 

The Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) has released a report emphasizing that Vietnam needs to prepare to ‘wean itself from ODA’ and develop the domestic capital market, because the only way for sustainable development is with its own resources.

However, he admitted that mobilizing resources from the public would be a difficult task.

Some years ago, the Vietnam Gold Traders Association (VGTA) for the first time proposed to apply reasonable policies to exploit 500 tons of gold kept among people and put the huge capital into production and set up a national gold exchange. 

The demand for capital for investment and development remains high, but 500 tons of gold kept by the people has been forgotten.

As Vietnamese have the habit of hoarding gold, the amount is considered to be very big.

Since 2011, when commercial banks stopped receiving deposits in gold as requested by the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), people have kept their gold in their coffers.

In early 2017, the government released Resolution No 1, requesting that the monetary management agency consider solutions to exploit gold and foreign currency resources among people.

National Assembly deputies also asked the State Bank to comment about the plan to mobilize resources among people.

However, there has been no answer to date.

Meanwhile, an analyst warned that the policies which strengthen the mobilization of gold and foreign currencies from the public may be in conflict with others.

The policy on encouraging people to deposit gold and foreign currencies at banks, for example, will exploit huge resources among people, but will make the effort to struggle against ‘dollarization’ and gold holding useless. 

The State Bank has prohibited banks from accepting deposits in dollars and gold, so the government cannot use the resources.

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Mai Chi