Gold was traded at VND26.81-26.92 million/tael on the domestic market on January 5, up VND200,000/tael compared to a day earlier.
The sudden increase on the domestic gold market was attributed to the rising gold prices on the global market, from US$1,100/oz on January 4 to US$1,124/oz on January 5, nearly reaching the record set on December 17, 2009. This represented the largest increase over the past two months after the US dollar value dipped slightly.
On the Asian market, at 10:30am on January 5, gold was sold at US$1,123.4/oz, while on the European market it rose to US$1,128.2/oz at 14:06pm on the same day.
The world's largest gold-backed exchange fund, SPDR Gold Trust, on January 4, sold 4,877 tonnes of gold, reduce its reserves to 1,128.745 tonnes (minus 0.4 percent).
Economists predicted that prices would hover somewhere between US$880 and 1,280/oz during the next six months. Fluctuations will not depend on the limited supply of gold, as it did in the previous year.
