After more than a decade of tight control, the Government has ordered the establishment of a national gold trading exchange. Together with the planned removal of the central bank's monopoly on gold bar production in October 2025, these moves mark a new turning point for the market. However, a review of five decades of regulation shows that the core challenge goes beyond transparency. It lies in ensuring that gold remains an asset and does not return to the monetary system.

Establishing a gold exchange and ending the gold bar production monopoly In an official dispatch issued on January 24, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh instructed the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) to urgently complete a research and assessment dossier and review the proposal to establish a national gold trading exchange. The central bank was asked to report to the Government Standing Committee within January. Earlier, the National Assembly had also asked the Government to develop appropriate solutions and a clear roadmap for setting up a gold exchange and stabilizing the market. After more than a decade of strict administrative controls, Vietnam is entering a turning point in the management of its gold market. The Government has issued Decree No. 232/2025/ND-CP, effective from October 10, 2025, amending Decree 24 and officially abolishing the State monopoly on gold bar production. At the same time, the establishment of a national gold trading exchange is expected to bring greater transparency to a market that attracts strong public attention. Decree 24 and the remaining constraints From 2012 to 2025, Decree 24 served as a central pillar, alongside other policies, in tightening control over gold trading activities. In an article published in The Saigon Times in May 2024, economists Nguyen Xuan Thanh and Huynh The Du wrote that Decree 24/2012/ND-CP had fulfilled its historical role in the Vietnamese economy. By creating a monopoly over SJC gold bar production and ending banks’ gold mobilization and lending, the State succeeded in stabilizing the exchange rate and separating gold from the monetary system. Before 2011, throughout Vietnam’s transition to a market economy, the financial system experienced prolonged “goldization” and “dollarization,” which weakened the effectiveness of monetary policy. The roots of this problem lay in policy choices shaped by historical circumstances. For many years, banks and credit institutions were allowed to mobilize gold and foreign currency from the public at interest rates comparable to those applied to the Vietnamese dong, and then use these resources to lend back to the economy. Against this backdrop, the State temporarily monopolized the gold bar manufacturing market through the SJC brand to quickly remove gold from banks’ balance sheets, limit speculative activity, and restore the central role of monetary policy. However, Nguyen Xuan Thanh and Huynh The Du also identified three persistent problems that Decree 24 failed to resolve: the wide gap between domestic and global gold prices, ongoing gold smuggling, and recurring localized “gold rush" episodes. These unresolved issues are a key reason why Vietnam is now reconsidering its approach to gold market management and regulation. Vietnam’s earlier experience with gold liberalization The current policy adjustments can only be fully understood when viewed against the longer historical trajectory of gold management. After 1975, Vietnam continued to apply a model of tight State control over gold transactions, following earlier practices in northern areas. A major shift came in 1986, when the gold market was gradually liberalized alongside the Doi Moi (renovation) process. In July 1986, the Party Secretariat allowed HCMC to establish a gold and silver trading company. The company operated under the State’s policy of unified management of gold, silver, diamonds, and gemstones, under the direction of the HCMC People’s Committee and the SBV. At the same time, the State formally recognized citizens’ lawful ownership of gold and silver deposited at banks. In the following years, liberalization continued to expand. By 2000, credit institutions licensed to conduct foreign exchange activities were allowed to mobilize capital in gold or in Vietnamese dong secured by gold. From 2001, gold imports returned to normal. The legal framework was further strengthened through Decree 174/1999 and Decree 64/2003, enabling gold to play a deeper role within the financial system. This process reached its peak in 2006, when the SBV allowed gold trading on overseas accounts. However, the high degree of liberalization, combined with the rapid growth of gold exchanges and gold mobilization and lending activities, increased risks to the financial system. From 2009, the Government began to reverse course by tightening controls on gold exchanges and account-based gold trading. By 2011, gold mobilization and lending by credit institutions were officially brought to an end. As the Government now calls for the establishment of a national gold trading exchange, the market is expecting a new phase of more transparent and effective management of this special asset. However, lessons from half a century of regulation show that reform can only be sustainable if it does not run counter to principles that were learned at great cost in the past. As Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Duc Thanh has repeatedly stressed in The Saigon Times, gold and foreign currencies may be widely traded in the market, but only as assets to be bought and sold—not as instruments circulating within the monetary system.