HANOI(BullionStreet): Vietnam's central bank, State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) said gap between local and global gold prices have yet to impact country's macro economy.

SBV governor Nguyen Van Binh said the gap between local and global gold prices so far has left no impact on the macro economy, so there is no need to narrow it.

Vietnam last year introduced a Gold Decree, which said State is now the only gold bar producer prompting other firms to officially end gold bar production.

Before Decree 24 was issued, each segment of the gold market had been managed by a different agency.

The legal environment was uncertain, resulting in many shortcomings in gold market management. Since April, illegal gold import has significantly declined and the exchange rate has remained stable.

Therefore, although the gap between local and global gold prices has widened to some VND3 million a tael, the macro economy remains intact.

However, there were mixed opinions about the difference between local and global prices among gold traders.

Sacombank Jewlery Company considered a gap of VND200,000-400,000 per tael is reasonable, whereas the representative of Saigon Jewelry Company said the current gap barely ensures profits for jewelers.

Firms would definitely suffer losses with a lower gap as global price sometime changed sharply.

Analysts said a survey on the market’s gold supply and demand should be conducted, so that the State Bank of Vietnam could know the exact volume of gold it needs to import to stabilize the market.

Vietnam has not been proactive enough in gold import and export activities, they added. Vietnam's last gold import of 15 tons was in 2011 final quarter.