Doji Group lists the ring gold price at 74.8 – 76.5 million VND/tael for buy-in and sell-out, a 200,000 VND/tael increase compared to this morning.
Bao Tin Minh Chau Company Limited lists the plain ring price at 74.68 – 76.28 million VND/tael for buy-in and sell-out, a 100,000 VND/tael increase.
Saigon Gold and Gemstone Company lists the ring gold price at 73.8 – 75.5 million VND/tael.
Meanwhile, the SJC gold bar price remains around 85 million VND/tael.
At the same time, the international gold price is at 2,334 USD/ounce, an 8 USD/ounce increase compared to this morning.
Many shops are running out of ring gold.
Plain ring gold has recently gained public attention after the Prime Minister’s guidance on reducing the price gap between SJC gold bars and the international market.
In essence, plain rings are a type of pure gold or also known as tael gold, similar to gold bars. Despite having the same gold content, plain rings are not “exclusively labeled” by the State through the SJC brand like gold bars. This also leads to a difference of tens of millions of VND between each tael of plain rings and SJC gold bars.
Therefore, recently, due to the surge in demand for ring gold, many shops have run out of stock to sell to customers.
Explaining the phenomenon of ring gold scarcity, the owner of a gold shop in Hanoi stated that the current psychology of many gold buyers is to accumulate assets because the interest rates of banks are currently too low. However, people now prioritize buying ring gold instead of gold bars like before due to concerns that the upcoming amendment of Decree 24 will have a strong impact on the gold bar market.
“Once competent authorities reconsider the monopoly, the SJC gold price may drop significantly, getting closer to the converted international price, which is a possible decrease of more than 10 million VND/tael. Therefore, many people have switched from buying gold bars for accumulation to ring gold, jewelry gold to minimize risks”, this person said.
From another perspective, Mr. Huynh Trung Khanh – Vice Chairman of the Vietnam Gold Business Association – analyzed that since the implementation of Decree 24/2012 on gold market management, enterprises have not been granted a license to import raw gold. Enterprises can only buy gold on the domestic market to produce jewelry and gold art.
“Buying gold that is in circulation on the market, however, does not satisfy the requirements for invoices, lists of goods and services, and it is risky to buy smuggled gold. The recent tightening of gold smuggling cases by management agencies have made many domestic enterprises not daring to buy gold in circulation on the market, further limiting the supply of raw gold”, said Mr. Khanh.
Moreover, trading in plain ring gold brings lower margins than other jewelry products that require processing. Therefore, plain rings are not a product that is prioritized for business expansion when the supply of raw materials is limited.
According to expert Tran Duy Phuong, the large price gap has encouraged people to switch to buying ring gold in recent days. Especially after many opinions questioned why there has been such a large price gap between SJC gold bars and the converted international gold price for such a long time.
“They buy for two reasons. Firstly, to seize the opportunity to accumulate while the gold price is low, and secondly, because they are afraid of buying SJC gold bars at this time, given that it is too risky if there is a policy change that causes the price of gold bars to “crash” to be at the same level as the ring gold price”, Mr. Phuong said.
He also added that not only individuals but many gold shops are also taking the opportunity to hoard raw gold to make jewelry, gold art, etc.
