State Bank of Vietnam receives 11 license applications to produce gold bars

At a press briefing on the afternoon of April 14, Đào Xuân Tuấn, head of the Currency and Foreign Exchange Administration (State Bank of Vietnam), said the central bank has received 11 applications seeking licenses to produce gold bars from enterprises and commercial banks.

Licensing applications and capital requirements

Mr. Tuấn said companies must have minimum charter capital of VND 1,000 billion to produce gold bars, while commercial banks must have VND 50,000 billion.

The State Bank is coordinating with ministries and related agencies to appraise, review, and grant licenses to units that meet all conditions under current regulations.

Import licensing for raw gold after production approval

After units are granted licenses to produce gold bars, the State Bank will continue to consider issuing licenses to import raw gold for organizations that meet the standards.

Licensing is carried out based on monetary policy management objectives and the gold supply–demand balance in each period, while complying with Decrees 24/2012/ND-CP and 232/2025/ND-CP, as amended.

Scope of gold exports and imports

Current regulations specify that gold exports and imports include jewelry, crafts, and raw gold.

For raw gold, the State Bank issues annual quotas and single-use licenses to enterprises and commercial banks that meet the conditions.

Examples of cases considered for raw gold import licenses

• Enterprises with jewelry processing contracts with foreign countries.
• Foreign-invested enterprises producing jewelry and crafts.
• Enterprises investing in gold mining abroad.
• Enterprises with gold mining permits in Vietnam.

Purity, disclosure, and compliance requirements

Licensed enterprises or banks may only import gold bars and raw gold with purity of 99.5% or higher. Entities must disclose the standards applied, the quantity and purity of imported gold, and are legally responsible for the accuracy of the disclosed standards.

In addition to quality requirements, licensed entities must establish internal regulations on export/import, safety measures in trading, and an information system to process and store data about partners, quantity, purity, and transaction value. All data must be connected to and provided to the State Bank in accordance with the Governor’s regulations.

Permitted uses of imported raw gold

Under regulations, imported raw gold can only be used for specific purposes such as producing gold bars, producing jewelry and crafts, or selling to licensed enterprises and banks. The framework is intended to provide a legal basis for transparent, proper, and purpose-driven gold import–export activities.