The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) plans to sell more than 30 tonnes of gold this year and import the same volume.
The central bank said it expects to sell around 20 tonnes of gold to meet the demand of local banks.
The SBV estimates it will spend 1.5 billion USD from foreign exchange reserves to import gold.
Gold demand each year was 50 tonnes, but domestic gold volume sharply
declined for the past two years while the Government banned gold
imports.
Nguyen Quang Huy, head of the central
bank’s Foreign Exchange Management Department, told the Banking Times
newspaper that the SBV had imported material gold for the past seven
weeks to produce gold bars for auction.
Since March,
the central bank has organised 23 gold bullion auctions to narrow the
gap between supply and demand on the local market.
The central bank sold 580,200 taels (approximately 22.3 tonnes) out of 640,000 taels offered.
The domestic gold price fell on May 28 to less than 41 million VND per tael after a slight increase the previous day.-VNA