Yangon Gold Entrepreneurs Association issued a request on 12 March to make gold transactions below the set reference price and avoid the spread of false news and price manipulation.
Those dealers are manipulating the market, resulting from the spreading of misleading information. The authorities concerned are attempting to deal with market abuse, and inspecting and prosecuting market manipulation are being undertaken.
Moreover, the CBM requested not to be involved in market manipulation to interfere with market stability. The YGEA set reference gold price at K3.7926 million per tical (0.578 ounce or 0.016 kilogramme) on 12 March.
By tracking the spot gold price rally to US$2,170 per ounce, the pure gold price rocketed to K4.05 million per tical in the unofficial domestic market.
Therefore, there is a price difference of K250,000 per tical between the YGEA’s reference price and the actual market value.
Earlier, the YGEA calculated the price depending on the Central Bank of Myanmar’s interbank reference exchange rate, with some addition, in spite of the US dollar gain in the unofficial forex market, causing the price gap to widen to K400,000-500,000 per tical.
Following the CBM’s liberalization for authorized dealers for online forex trading on 5 December 2023, the gap between the YGEA’s reference price and the actual market value narrowed. The Kyat-US Dollar exchange rate is K3,650 at present.
The US dollar exchange rate, therefore, weighs on the gap between the domestic gold market value and YGEA’s reference gold price.
The soaring dollar exchanging up to K4,000 drove the gold price up to a record high of K4 million per tical in late August 2023. — NN/EM
