Jewellery sales are booming ahead of the Lunar New Year early next month.

“At the year end middle-class women get their Tet bonus,” Pham Van Tam, deputy chairman of HCM City Jewellery Association, told Nguoi Lao Dong (Labourers) newspaper.

“They often spend it on jewellery. Some buy jewels as gifts.”

Jewellery prices are a little up due to high demand but gold prices are steady, he said.

“Only pig-shaped jewels to mark the Year of the Pig requiring a lot of work are high-priced.”

Nguyen Tu Mi, owner of Mi Hong Gold, speaking about the sharp rise in demand for jewellery at the year end, said: “It’s normal and our company has stocked hundreds of thousands of pieces, especially pig-shaped ones, to meet the demand.”

Tran Van Dang, general director of Agribank Jewellery and Gemstone Company, said many people had been selling bullion and rings to buy jewellery and his company’s jewellery sales had increased 50 per cent in the last 10 days.

A spokesman for Kim Hao Gold company, a jewellery manufacturer in HCM City’s District 5, reported that his company and many others had doubled their production in the last few months to supply HCM City and the Mekong Delta, especially jewellery products costing VND2-5 million (US$100–250).

Some imported products from Hong Kong and Taiwan are also selling well because of reasonable prices and diverse designs. — VNS