Buying Gold Vietnam VS Cambodia .........or elsewhere????

This question has been covered fairly recently. 
https://www.expat.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=762562

I still find it rather incredible that there is still a spread between Vietnamese and world prices.  When people were less mobile it may have made sense but now thousands of people enter at Tan Son Nhat every day.  There is way too much opportunity for arbitrage.  Even if only a few hundred travelers were carrying a legal amount, it wouldn't take much to bring local prices back to world levels. 

If you are planning to trade in Cambodia, be careful as a tael in one country may not be the same as a tael in another.

Thanks for pointing me to that thread THIGV. Boy Ciambella usually knows her stuff, but in that thread she really misses the mark. In her view the Vietnamese women have the goods when it comes to wisely buying gold in the world. Can not see how loosing 18% off the top on your money is wise.

Seems like tunnel rat is in the know on this subject. I had seen him speak about somewhere on here long ago. I have PM'd him for an education course on the issue. Thanks for pointing me to the right thread. Maybe the mods can delete this thread or move it. But why wake them up....better left sleeping.

This source says that there is no limitation to the amount of gold that one can bring into the country as long as you declare it,  https://www.vietnamonline.com/visa/cust … tions.html however the veracity of the site may be limited by the fact that it is basically a travel agency.

On the other hand this somewhat dated news article (2014) states that it is illegal to transport bar gold in either direction across Vietnam's borders:  http://www.vir.com.vn/travelers-banned- … 26751.html 

These sources are directly contrary, but that is not unusual in Vietnam.   

This link is from a government source but I can't get it to come up as I think it is incomplete.  It may work from within Vietnam.  https://www.customs.gov.vn/Lists/Englis … 69...en...

That link will not come up here either. I will have to do some checking on that.

Maybe you could go to only customs.gov.vn then take it from there.  Barring any other information, the newspaper article from 2014 seems pretty definitive.  Of course that doesn't necessarily mean that the rules are being followed at VN/KH border crossing points as the experience of tunnelrat69 seems to show.

Here's my translation of the newest regulation (to modify the 2015 law)  effective July 10, 2017:

This circular stipulates that custom declarations are required upon entry or exit for the following categories:

- Persons who carry foreign currencies valued at over USD 5,000, or the equivalence in other currencies, or carrying over VND 15,000,000;

- Persons who carry drafts, checks or precious metals (silver, platinum, mixed metals containing silver or platinum), precious stones (diamond, ruby, sapphire, emerald) valued at 300 million VND or more;

- Gold carriers as follows:

Persons on exit or entry with passports carrying gold and wearable gold jewelleries of a total weight of 300 grams or more;

Persons on exit or entry with passports or border identity cards wearing jewelleries such as rings, necklaces, bracelets, earrings, brooches and other jewelry of a total weight of 300 grams or more;

Foreigners who are allowed to reside in Vietnam carrying raw gold material, gold bars, gold jewelleries, and fine art items containing gold with a total weight of 300 grams or more.

Vietnamese residing abroad carrying raw gold materials, gold bars, gold jewelleries and fine art items containing gold with a total weight of 300 grams or more.

Here's the link in Vietnamese:   https://vnexpress.net/tin-tuc/phap-luat … 90602.html

It sounds like only Vietnamese citizens living in Vietnam are affected by the prohibition on carrying gold bars over the border.  If I read it correctly, foreigners and VK holding foreign passports are OK with carrying bars, but locals are restricted to wearable gold.

At current world prices, gold is US$38.80/gram.  The 300 gram allowance would be a quite generous $11,640.00, so it looks like tunnelrat69's arbitrage scheme of buying bars in Cambodia may be legal.

What is the current buy price in HCMC?  It would need to be safely over 906,000 VND/gram for the idea to work.

As I read it here and elsewhere you can carry < 300 g and are not required to declare it. Anything over you must declare. So what happens if you declare your carring 700g. Is it just a matter of declaring so they know, will they tax you on the excess, will they confiscate it?

I don't think they can confiscate what you declare (at least not legally), but they sure can confiscate what you don't.      The difference between 300g and 700g is $15,520.  Risking losing that much just because you don't want to declare it would seem foolhardy.