Prime Minister demands central bank fix gold price hikes

The move is to ensure that the domestic market operates in a stable, healthy, transparent, and efficient manner, and prevent the "goldization" phenomenon in the national economy, the leader said while chairing a recent meeting on solutions to manage the gold market in the coming time, the Government Office said in a notice.

The Government chief highlighted the interests of the nation and its people above all in market management; and to encourage the production and export of jewelry gold products to create jobs for laborers.

He asked for the implementation of measures and tools to manage and regulate the supply for both gold bullion and gold jewelry production, in order to ensure that market activities and transactions are managed and controlled tightly without affecting the exchange rate or foreign exchange reserves, and to prevent speculation, manipulation, or price hikes.

IT application and digital transformation in the management work must be accelerated. E-invoices for gold transactions must be improved.

The SBV, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Government Inspectorate, and other relevant agencies were urged to continue to seriously perform their tasks of monitoring, inspecting, supervising, and dealing with law violations such as cross-border gold smuggling, profiteering, speculation, manipulation, and taking advantage of policy loopholes to hoard gold and drive up prices, causing instability and jeopardizing the safety of the gold market.

Bullion prices in Viet Nam are higher than global prices by VND13 million (US$520.31) per tael of 37.5 grams while the gap is VND5.5-6.5 million for pure gold rings.

Gold prices have soared over the past week, with both bullion and ring having hit historic highs of VND85 million and VND78 million per tael./.