Gold: Vietnam abolishes SJC monopoly on bar production
Vietnam has officially ended the 13-year State monopoly on gold bar production, allowing qualified businesses and commercial banks to mint their own bars, Tuoi Tre has reported → view source.
Key details:
- Policy change: Decree 232 amends Decree 24 of 2012, which gave SJC exclusive rights to produce gold bars.
- Market impact: New brands will join SJC, reversing a system where non-SJC bars were terminated.
- Price gap: Under the monopoly, domestic prices diverged from global levels by up to VND 18–20 million (US$692–769) per tael.
- Supply shortage: In 2024, scarcity led to rationing, with consumers limited to one tael per person.
- Government aim: Narrow the domestic–international gold price gap to 1–2 percent, as directed by the Prime Minister in June.
Before 2012, Vietnam had multiple gold bar brands such as PNJ’s Phuong Hoang, SBJ, ACB, and Agribank’s AAA.
However, instability and speculation led the State Bank to consolidate all production under SJC and introduce import controls.
While this curbed volatility, it caused long-term distortions in supply and prices, culminating in shortages and extreme domestic–global price differences.
Decree 232 now reopens the market, signalling a shift toward liberalisation and supply diversification, however, it does not appear to address import controls, which have stymied the supply of gold into the country, and look to be the much bigger issue.
That is to say, liberalising gold bar production without liberalising the import and export of gold is more for show than an actual practical effort to close the gap in local and world gold prices.
