Vietnamese Dong
Here we take a quick look at Vietnamese Dong. Why? Well, it’s always made us snigger in a slightly puerile, schoolboy way- but just remember that the Vietnamese economy has got alot going for it. Not only is it right next door to the economic powerhouse of China, but this beautiful country has its own energy supplies, a rapidly growing tourism and tech economy and a large population of hard working Vietnamese who want to get ahead in the world.
The Dong is the official currency of Vietnam.There are 10 hao in a dong, and 10 xu in a hao. Hao and xu, however, are pretty small beer in monetary terms- they are no longer issued, so stick to dong.
Dong notes come in the following flavours: 200, 1000, 2,000, 5,000, 10,000, 20,000, 50,000, 100,000, and the all new Big Dong is the 500,000 which is worth approx. 25 American dollars.
As Del Boy famously said to Rodney in Only Fools & Horses: “This time next year we’ll be millionaires!”. Well head to Saigon on January 1st (Ho Chi Min City), change 50 bucks and you could well be, unless the currency appreciates substantially.
Dong means “copper” in Vietnamese, which was the original name for the Vietnamese currency when Vietnam was part of French Indochina. Fast forward to the end of the Vietnam war, following the fall of Saigon in ’75, the country changed its currency to the “liberation dong”. Each liberation dong was worth 500 southern dongs. After unification of the north and south, the currencies also became one.
In the mid ’80′s, the dong was revalued, with a Vietnamese Dong then equal to 10 old dongs.
So can you trade Vietnamese Dong? Well it’s not a currency that is readily available to trade as a currency at online forex brokers that we’ve looked at. A quick hunt around reveal a few sites that don’t look too, how shall we put it- corporate, such as dealorbuydinar.com (who also trade in Iraqi Dinar). The cross is USD/VND (here’s a quote for the currency pair: forexpros.com.
The Vietnamese currency is pegged to the US dollar and has been for some time. The central bank recently fixed USDVND to 20,828.
The Dong is allowed to rise or fall to 1 percent on either side of this number in a tight range. The government intervenes in the market to ensure that their export economy remains competitive, much like the Communist Party in China.
Investors who try and trade in Dong are basically making a bet that the currency will appreciate over the longer term as the Vietnamese economy develops. Not a bad bet, but caution is advised. This is not a currency that is easy to trade, and it’s certainly not one for the short term.
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