Gold jewelry business facing difficulties due to Circular 22

The golden age regulation applied according to Circular 22 will cause businesses to lose money, but failure to apply it will result in penalties.

In just over a week, Circular 22/2013 of the Ministry of Science and Technology on measurement management in gold trading and quality management of gold jewelry will officially take effect. However, in the Ho Chi Minh City market, more than 3,000 gold jewelry businesses in the city are confused by this circular. Applying the circular will result in losses, and failing to apply will result in penalties. The current solution for the gold jewelry business is at a standstill.

According to Circular 22, gold jewelry and fine art must be suitable and meet quality and measurement standards. Products must have a code, symbol, and gold content on each product to be circulated on the market.

Although Kim Son Gold Trading Enterprise knows that by June 1 it will have to apply new regulations on the production and trading of gold jewelry, it still has no solution for the nearly 1,000 old jewelry products that are in stock.

Mr. Ly Hai Son, owner of Kim Son gold shop, District 11, Ho Chi Minh City, wondered: "Now I don't know what to do to comply with the law, but if I do, I will have to remelt all this gold, then the business will have to close down."

Confused and not knowing how to handle millions of unsold jewelry products is a common situation for most businesses and jewelry stores today. They do not dare to produce new products, nor dare to remelt the old products because they will lose money.

According to the Ho Chi Minh City Jewelry and Fine Arts Association, all gold jewelry production and processing activities have been suspended for nearly a year, awaiting the Ministry of Science and Technology's decision on June 1.

Mr. Nguyen Van Dung, Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Jewelry and Fine Arts Association, said: "Now, all manufacturing enterprises, large and small, have stopped because they cannot sell their products to anyone. Gold shops do not dare to place new orders because they do not know how the Ministry of Science and Technology will handle it."

According to the standard, an 18k gold jewelry must not have a gold content lower than 75%, and for 24k gold, the gold content must not be lower than 99.9%. However, due to the long-standing laxity in quality control, the 18k gold jewelry that businesses are selling to the market has actually been cheating consumers on the gold purity (only about 58-68%).

Circular 22 is assessed by Associations and enterprises as being close to the measurement and management of gold jewelry in the Vietnamese market, and will also limit the quality of gold in each place, which is different in each place, and the price in each place as at present. However, the difficulty for enterprises is that the Ministry of Science and Technology gives too short a time to handle the inventory.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Hue, owner of Thiec Market Gold Shop, District 5, Ho Chi Minh City said: "Everyone wants to comply with the State's laws, but the time is too short to handle the inventory in time. If we send everything to the gold distributor now, we will lose money, because if we do it right, 10 old products can only be melted down to make 2 new products according to regulations."

In the near future, according to Circular 22, jewelry gold must be sold at almost 100% of its true age. This is a drastic circular to ensure consumer rights. However, to do this, hundreds of questions are being raised by businesses to the Ministry of Science and Technology such as: How to handle jewelry gold currently in circulation and being kept by the people, which unit is responsible for standardizing gold content measuring equipment, what are the regulations on prohibiting the use of harmful substances in jewelry, or if there is a violation, what will be the penalty...

With the current unresolved issues, many people are concerned that restoring order to the gold jewelry market on June 1 is not feasible./.

According to vov