Dollar rates soar in the market

The dollar rates at local commercial banks go up in the market on December 15.- Photo vef.vn

The dollar rates at the other commercial banks exceeded VND21,400 on the same day. Eximbank increased its dollar buying rate by VND20 to reach VND21,360, and its selling rate by VND10 to reach VND21,420. At Vietinbank also, the buying rate of the dollar was increased by VND10 to stand at VND21,365, but the selling rate was kept unchanged at VND21,405.

While the ACB bank kept the rates unchanged at VND21,340 and VND21,410 for each dollar, Vietcombank added VND5 more for each dollar over the previous week, with the buying rate being VND21,360 and the selling rate being VND21,405.

At the same time, the buying and selling rates in the other banks ranged between VND21,340 and VND21,350, and between VND21,400 and 21,410 VND respectively.

In the flea market, the US dollar's buying and selling rates were VND21,420 andVND21,450 respectively.

According to the financial website gafin.vn, dollar rates have been rising in recent days because of the increasing demand for the currency at the end of the year. The price management department said that the forex rate increased due to the large gap between the gold price in the local and the world markets, forcing traders to get more dollars to buy gold.

On the global gold trading floor kitco.com, gold was traded at $1,217 per ounce or $1,466 per tael. In Ha Noi, each tael of the state-owned gold brand SJC was sold at VND35.29 million ($1,656). One tael is equivalent to 1.205 ounces. Thus, each tael of gold in Viet Nam was priced $190 higher than that in the world market.

Meanwhile, according to forecasts of the Viet Capital Securities, with abundant foreign currency reserves, the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) can increase the rate by one per cent in the first quarter of 2015.

On December 1, SBV had sold roughly US$1.1 billion to stabilise the foreign exchange market. However, the rate remained unchanged on its websitesbv.gov.vn. Since June 19, 2014, SBV has maintained the US dollar's exchange rate at VND21,246. The central bank set the US dollar rate's ceiling at VND21,458.50, which commercial banks were allowed to apply as an effective exchange rate with a one-per-cent margin.