Vietnam's Ministry of Finance recently issued a circular on freeing gold jewelry and gold- related products from exported taxes from Jan. 1, 2014. Vietnam's Central Economic Commission website on Tuesday quoted the ministry as saying that under Circular 164/2013/TT-BTC, from Jan. 1, 2014, exported taxes on gold jewelry and gold-related products will be decreased to zero percent, while unrefined gold will suffer 2 percent of exported tax at any amount. The ministry added that companies will be only able to export and import gold under the permission of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) with the above-mention tax rates. The current regulation on exported gold tax, applied from 2011, showed that 10 percent of tax will be imposed to unrefined gold whose content is less than 99.99 percent and gold jewelry whose content is more than 80 percent, said the ministry.