VINACHEM

The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) is scheduled to hold a gold bullion bidding session on April 23 in an effort to increase the supply of gold bullion and stabilize the domestic gold market that has made national headlines in recent times.

The central bank is expected to sell 16,800 taels of SJC gold bullion bars at an initial price of VND81.8 million per tael.

Since the beginning of this year domestic gold prices have increased strongly, setting new records and widening the gap with the global prices. The disparity between the domestic and global prices is now at around VND10 million per tael.

The bidding session is to increase gold bar supply and to handle the existing huge gaps that exist between SJC gold prices and the world prices.

So far a total of 15 commercial banks and gold trading enterprises are qualified to participate in the bidding session.

This is the second time the State Bank of Vietnam has conducted the gold bullion bidding session after the first one held 11 years ago.

In the first bidding session held in March 2013, about 1,819,900 out of the 1,932,000 taels of gold bullion were sold.  – VOV –