Monday, October 15, 2007

State Bank keeps hands off appreciating dong

I know.
It's not me. Click the link.
See post immediately below for backround.

From the Vietnam News Service:

A number of leading banks last week quoted a single rate for buying and selling US dollars, and the figure was set at the floor of the officially-permitted trading band.

On Friday, the State Bank of Viet Nam set the daily inter-bank rate at VND16,160 per dollar. Given a trading band of +/-0.5 per cent. This means that commercial banks are allowed to exchange currency within a range of VND16,079-16,241.

Vietcombank, on Friday, pushed its selling rate down to the floor rate of VND16,079, a figure equal to that at which they were buying US dollar, a move that guaranteed no profit on foreign exchange transactions.

The situation repeats a pattern from earlier this year when the dong appreciated at a time of strong inflows of foreign currency into the then-overheated stock market. The State Bank intervened at that time by buying up US$7 billion in the first half of 2007, and the dollar rebounded on the local market.

This time, however, the central bank shows no signs of wanting to buy up the greenback to stop its declining trend on the local market....MORE