The Economic Committee of the National Assembly has just issued report No. 3176/BC-UBKT15 examining and evaluating the implementation results of the National Assembly's Resolution on the 2024 Socio-Economic Development Plan; and the projected 2025 Socio-Economic Development Plan.
According to the Economic Committee, the financial environment, the monetary and financial system, the corporate bond market, the gold market and the real estate market still have potential risks.
The economy's capital supply capacity is still limited, heavily dependent on bank credit while the capital market has not developed commensurate with its role as a medium- and long-term capital channel, especially the corporate bond market which still has many potential risks; the banking system has many potential risks of bad debt.
Some shortcomings and limitations of the economy accumulated over many years have not been thoroughly resolved.
The financial and monetary markets still face challenges, with high levels of bad debt and slow handling of weak banks. Low credit growth in the first months of the year amid falling interest rates shows that businesses’ ability to access and absorb capital is still limited.
The USD/VND exchange rate tends to increase in the first half of 2024 due to pressure from the international market and unfavorable supply and demand in the domestic foreign exchange market, affecting business operations; gold market management still has many shortcomings, causing pressure on the foreign exchange market and exchange rates.
The VND/USD exchange rate in 2024 will have a period of unexpected increase (on January 2, 2024, the central exchange rate announced by the State Bank was 23,848 VND, then on May 16, 2024, it was 24,240 VND), causing more difficulties for businesses.
The gold market has many fluctuations, the domestic gold price index in September 2024 increased by 22.6% compared to December 2023, increased by 32.27% compared to the same period last year; on average in the first 9 months of 2024, the gold price index increased by 26.27% compared to the same period when the world gold price increased to a record high.
According to the National Financial Supervision Committee, the difference between domestic and international gold prices has increased sharply since 2020. In 2024, there was a time when the difference was recorded at 20 million VND/tael, 8.3 times higher than the average of the period 2012 - 2020.
The difference between domestic gold bar prices and world gold prices is due to the large demand for gold, while the supply of gold bars is tightly controlled through SJC; the supply of raw gold used to produce gold bars and jewelry is also currently controlled through annual import quotas.
According to the Government's previous assessment, the solutions to intervene and stabilize the gold market were implemented decisively, promptly and effectively, helping to stabilize the psychology of people and businesses, reducing the gap between domestic and international gold bar prices. In particular, gold was sold directly to people in need through 4 state-owned commercial banks and SJC Company.
The work of grasping the situation, inspecting, checking and supervising has been strengthened, strictly handling acts of speculation, smuggling and violations of the law in gold trading activities.
Tax management and the application of electronic invoices for gold trading activities have been implemented vigorously; up to now, 100% of gold trading enterprises have applied electronic invoices connected to tax authorities.
