After arresting 21 gold dealers, Myanmar junta vows to detain more

With at least 21 gold business owners already in custody, junta-run news outlets published an announcement on Sunday naming ten other prominent Yangon and Mandalay gold merchants whom the military intends to prosecute. Military authorities arrested the 21 gold dealers in late May after the real market price for one tical (approximately 16.3 grammes) of 24 carat gold reached an unprecedented 5.7 million kyat (US $2,730). Junta officials allege that the targeted merchants are responsible for destabilising the price. Among the dealers the junta intends to arrest are Aung San Win, San Win, Aung Kaung Myat,Thet Naung Win, and Myo Thu Win, the respective owners of the gold and jewellery businesses Aung Thamardi, Zwe Htet, Weint Sein, Khayan-Thongwa, and Academy Gold Refinery. Sein Kyaw Moe gold shop owner Kyaw Nyein, Shwe Zin Win gold refinery owner Aye Kyu, and gold brokers Kyaw Win, Nyi Nyi Oo and Tin Tin Naing are also on the list. More gold shops closed in Yangon following the announcement. Locals said only half the gold businesses in Yangon remained open by Monday morning, with some putting out signs announcing that they were pausing all sales of 24 carat gold. Branches of the Shwe Nan Taw gold business—owned by the junta’s hotel and tourism minister Thet Thet Khine—notably stayed open in Yangon. A closed gold shop in Yangon, seen on June 3 (Photo: Ko Kan Kaung) Yangon gold dealers say the junta, which enforces price controls for gold and other commodities as well as fixing the exchange rate for American dollars, is accusing dealers of illegal trading and speculation that drives up the market price for gold. A gold shop owner from Yangon, who requested anonymity, said that dealers are afraid to sell gold now. He added that the market price had dropped recently. In Yangon, the real market price for one 24-carat tical fell from a peak of more than 5.7 million kyat (US $2,730) last Thursday, stabilising at around 5.2 million kyat (US $2,490) by Monday. The fixed price for one tical, set by the junta-controlled Yangon Region Gold Entrepreneurs Association (GEA), went from under 4 million to just over 4.1 million kyat during the same five-day period. According to gold shop owners, the GEA sets prices based on the junta-controlled Central Bank of Myanmar’s undervalued dollar exchange rate, which makes profitable trading impossible. Some shops have resorted to selling only 22-carat gold, which is not subject to the regime’s price controls. Sales of gold have halted and shops have closed in Mandalay, according to a man living near the city’s Zay Cho market, who requested anonymity for security reasons. “It’s very hard. Gold entrepreneurs are in trouble. It’s not right for them to arrest gold shop owners for raising prices. It’s a bad state of affairs,” he said. Some gold merchants stopped selling in late May as the market price shot up, a gold buyer in Mandalay recalled, and all buying and selling in the gold market had stopped dead in the city by Monday. “Now that trading has stopped, people like us who can't buy much gold, those who used to buy a little gold with our small wages or modest business profits, don't know what to do anymore,” she said. “People who invested heavily in gold because they didn’t want to keep their savings in cash can’t sell it now, and it’s causing difficulties,” she said. The present crackdown follows earlier action by the junta in April, when authorities closed or issued warnings to half a dozen gold businesses for allegedly selling without a licence or otherwise failing to comply with the junta’s directives. Since the military coup of 2021, the junta’s persistent efforts to control foreign exchange rates and gold markets have mostly failed, due in large part to the rapidly depreciating kyat. Sharp increases in the price of gold are expected amid high inflation, according to gold dealers, but more than once the junta has responded to increases in the domestic price of gold by blaming speculators for manipulating the market or spreading rumours about its real value. The price for a tical of gold in Myanmar has more than tripled since before the coup, rising from just over 1,300,000 kyat to more than 5,000,000 this year.

After arresting 21 gold dealers, Myanmar junta vows to detain more

As several well-known gold shops in Yangon closed, the military council announced that it would continue a crackdown on merchants for ‘destabilising’ the price of gold

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