Vietnam ends 13-year gold monopoly to fight price speculations and smuggling
Vietnam’s government has announced plans to liberalize the country’s gold bullion market. Vietnam’s General Secretary, To Lam, called for a decisive shift in regulation. “The gold market must operate in accordance with market principles under state management, avoiding rigid interference that restricts its function and potential. Ensure respect for property rights, freedom of business, and transparency for both citizens and enterprises.”
Since 2012, Vietnam and North Korea have been the only countries on Earth that maintain a state monopoly over gold bullion. But rather than an orderly and fair market, the policy resulted in widespread price distortions, corruption, and smuggling. Under the state monopoly regime, the price premium of domestic over international gold has reached as high as $586 per ounce.
Gold became extremely in demand as a safe-haven asset when Vietnam’s economy faced significant macroeconomic turbulence and high inflation during the 2008 to 2012 period, but repeated price surges and the draining of foreign currency reserves only exacerbated the country’s economic instability.
To address the chaos, the government issued a decree to ‘stabilize’ the gold market, granting the state exclusive rights to produce gold bullion and import raw gold for bullion production and granting Saigon Jewelry Company (SJC) the exclusive right to sell the state’s gold bullion.
The General Secretary outlined nine solutions, including revising the 2012 gold decree to:
- marketize gold regulation in a controlled, phased manner,
- improve integration between domestic and global gold markets,
- dismantle the state monopoly on gold bullion branding
- expand controlled gold import rights to increase supply,
- narrow the domestic-international price gap,
- and reduce gold smuggling.
