HANOI, Sept. 8 (Xinhua) -- Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh has instructed the State Bank of Vietnam to strengthen inspections and strictly deal with market manipulation and hoarding aimed at pushing up prices and illegal trading activities that destabilize the gold market, local media VnExpress reported Monday.
The central bank has been tasked with closely monitoring global and domestic gold price movements and promptly deploying necessary measures to stabilize the market.
The directive came as gold prices in Vietnam have been rising for over two weeks.
Since the beginning of this year, domestic gold prices have surged over 40 percent, reaching a record high of more than 135 million Vietnamese dong (about 5,113 U.S. dollars) per tael last week, while remaining about 20 million dong (about 757 U.S. dollars) higher than global prices, according to VnExpress. ■