HA NOI — The State Bank of Viet Nam has said its management of the gold market has been compliant with existing laws and regulations.

The comment was made in a press release on Wednesday in response to incorrect information in an article published on Wednesday by Thanh Nien (Young People) newspaper.

The article reported that the World Gold Council estimates that 25.5 tonnes of gold was illegally imported into Viet Nam during the 2011-12 period. The SBV says the World Gold Council had not made such an estimate, and the newspaper had incorrectly reported the figure, which was in fact for estimated demand for gold and jewelry during the period.

The incorrect figure in the newspaper was due to translation errors, which distorted the Government's policies on gold market management, the SBV said.

Regarding the policy of temporary gold exports for re-import, the central bank said that the process was under close supervision. In addition, gold bars at recent auctions - a measure to intervene in the gold market in accordance with Government resolutions - came from the State Foreign Exchange Reserve and had no relevance to the temporarily-exported gold.

The article's interpretation that the policy of temporarily exporting gold for re-import aimed to legalise illegally-imported gold was incorrect. Reports that the gold bars for auctions came from the stocks of temporarily-exported and re-imported gold were also completely wrong and groundless, said the SBV in the press release. — VNS