The gold market usually sees a surge in activity before and after Tet in Ho Chi Minh City as people use their salaries and year-end bonuses to purchase gold. Nevertheless, this year, the special market has showed an unusual quietness in the days leading up to Tet.
Most gold shops in streets around An Dong market in District 5, Thiec market in District 11, Tan Dinh market in District 1, Ban Co market and Vuon Chuoi market in District 3 have witnessed no buyers.
For instance, TTJ gold shop on Nguyen Duy Duong Street in District 5 saw only one customer who wanted to exchange a bracelet. The gold shop manager said that recently, the purchasing power of gold jewelry and wedding gold has decreased significantly compared to previous years. Customers mainly come to exchange old gold for new gold with extra money, but rarely buy new gold. While in previous years, this time is the peak trading season for the shop.
The manager of TTJ gold shop said that the management agency has tightened the input, so shops only buy back their own products. They neither buy gold without invoices nor sell 9999 gold rings because of the scarcity of raw materials. The purchasing power is low, so the store does not prepare many products even though the wedding season and the God of Wealth festival are coming.
A gold shop owner at An Dong market said that the price of gold has been continuously increasing, so customers mainly sell gold to solve family matters or sell for profit. She revealed that in previous years, customers often bought more jewelry at this time, but this year the sales volume is much lower.
According to the Ho Chi Minh City Jewelry Association, the gold jewelry market has experienced a gloomy year. The State Bank has not yet issued a license to import raw gold, so the supply is scarce. Consequently, businesses which buy raw gold to produce gold rings and gold jewelry on the market must comply with strict regulations on invoices and input documents, so some gold shops have had to close due to a lack of raw gold and low purchasing power.
Meanwhile, those who want to buy SJC gold bars and 9999 gold rings on the market are bumping into difficulties. Some businesses such as PNJ Company and Doji Group in Ho Chi Minh City have stopped trading these two types of gold because they do not have goods. Resident Minh Hue in District 5 said that her husband and she had just collected their Tet bonus money to buy 3 taels of the precious metal to keep as property.
She moaned as she couldn’t register to buy SJC gold through the website, but when she went to SJC Company to buy 3 taels of 9999 gold rings. Customers could only buy 5 taels of gold per person per day by cash and 5 taels of gold by bank transfer. To buy one tael of gold ring, she had to queue twice and show her ID card to buy it.
While the official gold market is quiet and buying gold is difficult due to scarcity, the trading in the black market is still quite bustling. As per records, the gold trading counters are quite sparse at SJC Company, but the area for SJC gold bar plastic bagging is always crowded with customers. Within just half an hour, up to 20 customers came to this area.
In fact, members of forums on social networking are still selling and exchanging gold rings of various brands and SJC gold bars continuously at prices higher than the listed price. Many traders have sold SJC gold purchase quotas of SJC Company and 4 state-owned commercial banks including Vietcombank, BIDV, ViettinBank, and Agribank with a fee of only VND100,000-VND150,000 per tael.
Regarding this, a SJC representative said that there are cases of customers using robots to buy gold through the website, so they easily bought the precious metal. The representative advised customers to caution because there are currently many scams.
