Perturbations sur le change $/vnd

Quelques remouds ces derniers jours concernant l'achat de US$ sur le marché noir...

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Dollar-dong exchange rate passes 16,000 05/09/2006 -- 16:34(GMT+7)

Ha Noi (VNA) -- The US dollar has risen against the Vietnamese dong in the last few days, with the dollar-dong exchange rate breaking the 16,000 VND barrier . It was even sold at 17,000 VND in the morning of May 9 on the free market. Commercial banks, meanwhile, are required to trade the US dollar within an allowable margin. Vietcombank's Ha Noi branch on May 8 quoted the greenback at 15,940/16,011 VND against the dong. The exchange rate was 15,945/16,005 VND last Friday. However, the depreciation of the dong should be short-lived, experts say. Truong Van Phuoc, director of the State Bank's Department of Foreign Exchange Management, said that, although a "milestone" had been passed, the movement was nothing unusual. "In fact, the US dollar has been close to 16,000 VND for quite some time," he said. "But, even 15,998 VND is still counted as "15-something" so people may get a bit worried and rush to buy as a "mental milestone" has been passed." Since the beginning of the year, Viet Nam has experienced an abundant supply of US dollars, he added, on the back of an improved trade and current account balance. Capital inflows have also surged with the relaxation of the cap on foreign investors' stakes from 30 percent to 49 percent in some domestic enterprises. The healthy amount of dollars that commercial banks have sold to the State Bank so far shows that commercial banks still have extra dollars after fulfilling importers' demand for foreign currency, Phuoc said. Vu Viet Ngoan, general director of the Bank for Foreign Trade of Viet Nam (Vietcombank) also agreed that he did not see any factor in international or domestic markets that would further drive down the dollar against the dong. "Large transactions paid in US dollars are settled via account clearing, so only cash transactions and speculative factors on the free market could have pushed up the exchange rate," Ngoan said. "But I believe the push will be weak and the market will soon stabilise." Indeed, some observers said the market was seeing a shortage of dollars as importers needed the foreign currency to pay for imports, particularly petroleum imports.-Enditem