Last Updated: Wednesday, April 24, 2013 04:40:00
Vietnam’s central bank has denied rumors of plans to create a “new currency system.”
The State Bank of Vietnam has denied rumors that a “new currency system” is going to replace the existing one.
Nguyen Chi Thanh, head of the central bank’s treasury department, said the rumors could have begun because of discussions about amending the Constitution and changing the country’s name. (more…)
Last Updated: Monday, April 29, 2013 05:00:00
The International Monetary Fund is not very hopeful that Vietnam can make further interest rate cuts this year.
“While headline inflation has come down, core inflation (excluding raw food and energy) remains high, limiting the room for rate cuts,” it said in a release at the conclusion of a mission to Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City from April 8 to 25 for the 2013 Article IV Consultation discussion with Vietnamese authorities. (more…)
At the Spring Economic Forum 2013, organized in the central province of Khanh Hoa from April 5-6, several delegates were of the view that the economic restructuring program started in Vietnam some years ago has been moving at far too slow a pace.
Incomplete Van Phong International Port in the central province of Khanh Hoa is an example of wasted capital (Photo: SGGP) (more…)
Last Updated: Sunday, April 07, 2013 05:00:00
Vietnam’s government will need to accelerate economic structural reforms to boost growth that was at a 13-year low last year, National Assembly Vice Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan said.
“The economy will continue to face difficulties this year” amid an international slowdown and domestic challenges, Ngan said yesterday at a conference held by the National Assembly’s economic committee in the southern city of Nha Trang.
(more…)
VietNamNet Bridge – Under the draft of the new Ordinance on Foreign Exchange, individual residents can borrow money from foreign sources, pay debts and must be responsible for the borrowing in accordance with the regulations to be drawn up by the government.
If the draft ordinance is approved, Vietnamese individuals would be able to take initiative in borrowing foreign currencies from foreign sources for their personal spending or investments and paying debts. (more…)
October CPI continues to climb
October’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) saw a slight increase of 0.85 percent compared with the previous month and a year-on-year increase of 7 percent.
This drove the CPI in the past ten months up to 9.66 percent in comparison with the same period last year, said the General Statistics Office (GSO) on October 24. (more…)
Use of small change has fallen as prices increase
Vietnamese notes and coins below VND5,000 (US$0.24) in value could die out in the market since price hikes make it hard for people to keep and use them in trading, an economist says.
Goods now fetch high prices, so trading with small change has fallen, Vu Dinh Anh told VnExpress Tuesday.
The report quoted a woman called Ha as saying: “I find small change worth nothing in our daily life, so I don’t want to receive it.”
Chuong, a resident of the capital city, said, “I ask vendors to keep the change of VND500-1000 because I cannot buy anything with it.” (more…)
Updated : 9:24 AM, 03/08/2012
Vietnam has successfully ensured an economic balance, bringing down inflation and initiating much needed reforms, according to a report by the Hong Kong-Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) on August 2.
Low inflation but slow growth (more…)
VietNamNet Bridge – Vietnam dong has big advantages over other investment channels at this moment. Keeping dong is the top choice for Vietnamese people because this allows to preserve their assets.
Investors believe that in the context of the bad performance of the world and national economies, the liquidity, not the expected profit, should be considered as the most important thing for them to consider when making investment decisions.
VietNamNet Bridge – Some bankers have urged the State Bank of Vietnam to regulate the dong/dollar exchange rate in a flexible way to ensure the harmonization of different economic goals, instead of trying to stabilize the exchange rate somehow.
The next dollar undercurrent wave
The dong/dollar exchange rate has been fluctuating regularly since early June. When the dollar price increased slightly in early June, this did not catch the attention of the public, because the central bank committed at the beginning of the year that the dong will not devaluate by more than 3 percent by the end of the year. (more…)
VietFinanceNews.com – Vietnam ’s economy is gradually entering a more stable macroeconomic environment after a prolonged period of heightened turbulence, said a World Bank report. (more…)
MAY 20, 2012
VietFinanceNews.com – The Vietnamese dong currency is rising, so exchange rate adjustments may be in store, said economic experts of the National Institute for Finance at a conference in Hanoi last week.
According to analyses by experts, the dong has strengthened by 23.8% against the U.S. dollar and by 5.7% against the basket of currencies of the country’s major trading partners. (more…)
VietFinanceNews.com – The Vietnamese dong currency is rising, so exchange rate adjustments may be in store, said economic experts of the National Institute for Finance at a conference in Hanoi last week.
According to analyses by experts, the dong has strengthened by 23.8% against the U.S. dollar and by 5.7% against the basket of currencies of the country’s major trading partners. (more…)
MAY 13, 2012
VietFinanceNews.com – The Vietnamese currency, the Vietnam dong, is increasing in value, said a research team of the Institute for Financial Strategies and Policies under the Ministry of Finance at a recent conference.
By the end of 2011, the dong appreciated 23.8 percent and 5.7 percent against the US dollar and a “basket” of foreign currencies of other trading partners, said the team at “Coordination of fiscal and monetary policies in macroeconomic regulation” conference held by the ministry in Hanoi. (more…)
VietFinanceNews.com – Fitch Ratings has affirmed Vietnam’s Foreign- and Local-Currency Issuer Default Ratings at ‘B+’. The Outlook for both Ratings is Stable. The Country Ceiling is also affirmed at ‘B+’, and the Short-Term Foreign Currency IDR at ‘B’. (more…)
VietFinanceNews.com – After sending a consultative task force to Vietnam in March, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said the Vietnamese Government’s macro-economy stabilising policies have started to yield high effect, with quickly decreasing inflation, trade deficit and pressure on VND.
IMF welcomed the State Bank of Vietnam, the central bank, which has recently increased foreign reserves considerably. The fund also supported the central bank’s policy of limiting the VND devaluation at 2-3% till the year-end. (more…)
APRIL 15, 2012
VietFinanceNews.com – The country’s leading experts have voiced concern that Vietnam is entering into a fresh battle to stave off yet another economic downturn, citing the central bank’s latest ceiling deposit rate reduction.
Worse still, macro-economic indicators in the first quarter point to a high possibility that the economy is spiraling into stagnation. (more…)
APRIL 16, 2012
VietFinanceNews.com – We seem to be going through another one of those periods when almost everyone you meet, especially in the bars, is talking Vietnam down and being negative.
However, there is a difference this time. In my 20 plus years here, the Vietnamese have never been negative or pessimistic, but today they seem to be adopting the negative sentiment. (more…)
VietFinanceNews.com – The State Bank of Vietnam has used around VND130 trillion to buy $6.23 billion worth of foreign currencies from banking systems for the national reserve.
The central bank has also sold some $100 million for the banking system, SBV Governor Nguyen Van Binh said at a recent meeting with the chairpersons and general directors of 14 Vietnamese commercial banks. (more…)
MARCH 15, 2012
VietFinanceNews.com – Vietnam needs to set up an independent central bank to deploy the monetary policy with the basic objectives to stabilize prices and curb inflation, said experts of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The central bank needs more specific and independent tasks, said IMF senior economist Rina Bhattacharya at a seminar discussing policy challenges of Vietnam in transition to a middle-income economy held by IMF and the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) in Hanoi on Wednesday. (more…)
VietFinanceNews.com – The State Bank of Vietnam had kept the dong/dollar interbank exchange rate at 20,828 dong per dollar for the 39th consecutive day by late last week.
The exchange rate stabilization has prompted people to sell dollars and keep dong.
Nguyen Ngoc Lan in Hoan Kiem district in Hanoi on February 16 morning came to Eximbank to ask about the dollar prices, planning to covert the dollar deposits at the bank to dong deposits. (more…)
JANUARY 9, 2012
VietFinanceNews.com – Vietnam’s currency, the dong , could lose 5-6 percent of its value against the dollar this year, a government advisory agency predicted on Monday.
The dong has suffered since 2008, pummelled by volatile inflation, a persistent trade deficit and low foreign exchange reserves. Annual depreciation of up to 6 percent could be seen as a “positive result”, the National Financial Supervisory Commission said in a report.
During 2011, the central bank lowered the dong’s midpoint rate by 9.1 percent, including an 8.5 percent one-off devaluation in February. Currently, the currency is allowed to trade around that rate in a band of 1 percent on either side. (more…)
VietFinanceNews.com – Experts of Singapore-based JP Morgan Chase Bank have predicted that the Vietnamese economy will achieve a higher degree of stability in 2012 than in 2011, thanks to the government’s tight policy which has started to bear results.
They also predicted that Vietnam’s inflation will cool down, the balance of payments will be better supported, and its foreign currency reserves will increase.
Vietnam’s trade deficit will be offset by overseas Vietnamese remittances and foreign direct investment, according to JP Morgan Chase.
The bank holds that the asset quality of banks remains one of the most worrying problems of the Vietnamese economy, even though the possibility of a crisis in the banking system is low at present.
The State Bank of Vietnam set the daily reference rate at 20,803, compared with 20,788 yesterday, according to its website. The currency can trade up to 1 percent on either side of the fixing. The dong has weakened due to “complicated” movements in the local gold market and the foreign-exchange market “has not stabilized yet,” the central bank said in an Oct. 24 report posted on its website.
VietFinanceNews.com – Vietnam’s dong declined after the central bank set its daily reference rate at the weakest level since at least 2005. Government bonds were steady.
The State Bank of Vietnam fixed the reference at 20,788 per dollar, compared with 20,768 yesterday, according to its website. The dong is allowed to trade up to 1 percent on either side of the rate. The currency fell 0.1 percent to 20,989 as of 3 p.m. in Hanoi, according to prices from banks compiled by Bloomberg. (more…)
VietFinanceNews.com – The State Bank of Vietnam, the country’s central bank, sent official dispatches, requesting credit institutions to strictly implement Decree No. 95 on gold and foreign exchange trading and asked support from four related Ministries on Oct 25.
The central bank asked credit institutions and branches of foreign banks to strictly follow the new regulations on foreign exchange control and gold trading management, actively detect and report violations. (more…)
VietFinanceNews.com – Vietnam’s foreign exchange reserves are estimated to be higher than earlier this year but are yet to reach the safe threshold, said the National Financial Supervisory Commission.
The forex reserves may be equal to 7.5 weeks of import cover compared to 3.5 weeks earlier this year, but they should cover 12 to 13 weeks of imports, Le Xuan Nghia, vice chairman of the commission, said this week.
After the central bank sold a large volume of foreign currencies within the past two weeks to cool down the exchange rate, financial experts are concerned that the move could pile pressure on foreign reserves and the central bank’s commitment to keep the exchange rate fluctuation under 1 percent from now to the end of this year.
VietFinanceNews.com – Building confidence is key to solving economic development issues, said former governor of the State Bank of Viet Nam Cao Sy Kiem in an interview with Tien Phong (Vanguard) newspaper.
What measures, already in place, should be continued to manage next year’s socio-economic development?
Our first priority should be to continue tightening fiscal and monetary policy, improving the efficiency of the national economy and strengthening management and supervision to minimise risk and losses. The Government should invest in underprivileged provinces to ensure social stability. It is important that the State instill confidence in people. The next step is to prepare solutions to more long-term problems and enact them in a sustainable way.
VietFinanceNews.com – The former State Bank of Viet Nam Governor Le Duc Thuy discusses the causes of high interest rates and the weakening dong with Vietnamese reporters on the sidelines of an economic conference on Tuesday.
What is your reaction to the fluctuations in the foreign exchange rate in recent weeks?
