Last updated: Wednesday, November 18, 2009 |
Tuan Tai gold shop, one of HCMC’s biggest private bullion traders, on Monday suspended its operations as police raided the store in the center in District 5.
The electronic board of Tuan Tai gold shop still displays gold prices on November 16, but its operations stop as the shop owner is suspected of having run away with debt.
People who were sitting in front of the shop at 37-39 Chau Van Liem Street on Monday said the shop owner, whom gold traders often refer to as Ms Kim Thanh, had run away due to big debt.
As witnessed by the Daily on Monday afternoon, jewelry and other gold products were no longer displayed at the shop.
Some anxious lenders of the shop owner who were either inside or outside the shop said the shop owner had raised funds from them at much higher interest rates than what banks were offering. They said the shop owner had disappeared since November 15.
The general director of a gold trading company said Tuan Tai was a fairly big gold trader in the city, so the closing of the shop would affect those people having a trade relationship with it.
Trading accounts held by Tuan Tai at some gold exchanges have been frozen due to great losses. On Tuan Tai’s website, it said it was a trading member of the gold exchanges of banks like Asia Commercial Bank (ACB), Vietnam Asia Commercial Bank, Eximbank, and Sacombank.
Police of District 5 and those of the district’s Ward 14 where the gold shop is registered declined to comment when reached by the Daily on Monday afternoon. Witnesses around the shop said police had come in the morning and took away things from the shop.
Tuan Tai Service Trading Production Limited Company gained a business license from the HCMC Department of Planning and Investment on October 18, 2005 with chartered capital of VND100 billion. Its operations include trading and importing gold and jewelry, and trading gold on foreign exchanges.
Tuan Tai is one of the few gold trading companies licensed by the central bank to trade gold on foreign exchanges. The company also provides big volumes of SJC gold bars to customers including commercial banks and local gold trading companies.
VietNamNet/SGT
http://www.vnnnews.net/major-private-gold-shop-shut-down-owner-reportedly-flees
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