Yangon and Mandalay gold traders stop selling as market price surges

Gold trading in Yangon and Mandalay has stalled indefinitely amid general economic volatility and following a rapid rise in the price of gold, according to local traders. The price of 16.6 grams of gold rose four percent in one day, from 5.5 million kyat (US $2,610) on Wednesday to 5.8 million kyat (US $2,750) the next morning. The junta-controlled Myanmar Gold Entrepreneurs’ Association, which sets the prices at which traders sell, had fixed the price for the same quantity at just under 4 million kyat, about 31 percent lower than Thursday’s real market price. Due to this price gap, and predictions that it would widen further in the coming days, traders in Mandalay’s Maha Aungmyay Township suspended all sales this week. “We’ve never experienced price hikes like this before. Almost all the shops have stopped selling gold. There’s little hope of prices falling or levelling out. Selling today would just mean losses tomorrow,” a Mandalay trader said. A buyer in Mandalay’s Pyigyitagon Township told Myanmar Now that the regime-controlled association’s price fixes have paralysed the trade in gold, impeding people from buying and selling it freely. “Some shops are buying gold at the price fixed by the Gold Entrepreneurs’ Association and then reselling it at the market price. Most have simply ceased selling gold,” she said. Proprietors of gold and jewellery shops on Shwe Bon Thar Street, a major gold trading area in Yangon, were also among the sellers who suspended their business. “Prices are not disclosed officially. We don’t know the market price for sure. The prices we hear about are just by word of mouth,” a gold trader from Yangon’s South Okkalapa Township said. “No one’s buying or selling. Current conditions aren’t good for it,” he added. A regime-appointed task force for monitoring and regulating the gold and currency markets ordered several major gold retailers to halt sales in order to stabilise the price after a meeting recently held in Mandalay, a source involved in Mandalay’s gold market said. In April of this year, at least five gold businesses shut down and five gold merchants were arrested by military authorities in Yangon and Mandalay, alarming other gold traders. The price for 16.6 grams of gold was around 1.3 million kyat before the military coup of February 2021, rising to 2 million kyat just one month later. The price increased steadily to 3 million kyat by April 2023, then surged to 3.5 million kyat by September and reached 3.7 million kyat by the end of the year. The rise of the gold price and dollar exchange rate occurred alongside nearly threefold increase in prices for consumer goods in the years following the military coup. “Our family requires at least 30,000 kyat [US $14] per day to cover our basic expenses. The cost of meat or fish alone is more than 25,000 kyat [US $12] per viss,” a Yangon resident said. “The rice that we used to buy for 50,000 kyat [US $24] now costs 180,000 kyat [US $86].” Rising fuel prices have also caused widespread hardship, especially among the poor. High inflation and deteriorating economic conditions have had the greatest impact on 50 percent of Myanmar’s population living under the poverty line, according to estimates from the United Nations Development Program in April.

Yangon and Mandalay gold traders stop selling as market price surges

Believing they would not make a profit if they sold at the price set by the junta-run Myanmar Gold Entrepreneurs’ Association, gold merchants in Myanmar’s largest cities closed up shop

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