Not a financial person, Mr. Le Hung Dung still made a name for himself in banking and gold before becoming famous for his role as the creator of the decade that changed Vietnamese football.
Talking to VnExpress this morning, Mr. Truong Van Phuoc – former Acting Chairman of the National Financial Supervisory Commission, who served as the General Director of Eximbank in the period 2008-2013, including more than 3 years working with Mr. Dung – commented: “He is a fierce and strong person. Therefore, he always motivates the brothers to work”, Mr. Phuoc said.
Mr. Phuoc said that Mr. Dung is not a finance person, but he is a person who has experienced many challenges in life, so he has a very reasonable way of using people. Under him, Eximbank’s leadership team was very united and led the bank to achieve good results.
With white hair, Mr. Dung always looks older than his age. Born in 1954 in a revolutionary family in An Giang, young Le Hung Dung had to leave his father when he was 7-8 years old (his father went to the North to gather under the Geneva Armistice Agreement 1954). It was not until 21 years later, in May 1975, when the country was unified, that he met his father again. That was also the time when Mr. Dung was in the army.
After that, he attended the Hanoi University of Foreign Languages and the Prague University of Foreign Languages. His career also spanned many fields. From 1986-2003, he worked as Deputy Director, then Director and Chairman of Vietnam Youth Tourism Center. At this time, he was not very famous.
In 2003, Mr. Dung turned to a new turning point with the position of Chairman of Saigon Jewelry Company – SJC. This is a state-owned enterprise directly under the People’s Committee of Ho Chi Minh City, established in 1988, operating under the model of a parent-child company, in which production and business of gold and jewelry are the main ones. All business activities at that time were quite quiet.
When Mr. Dung came to power, in 11 years of sitting on the leadership chair of SJC, he made an important contribution to transforming this business model, in addition to gold trading, he also participated in financial investments such as buying shares of SJC. some businesses, banks… and bring certain effects.
As for the gold business, in 2011, this business achieved a record turnover of 5 billion USD (about 110,000 billion VND), an increase of 50 times compared to the previous 10 years.
Before the Government’s Decree 24 on gold market management took effect (April 2012), SJC had the largest gold bar market share in the country (accounting for more than 90%). At the time when the gold price skyrocketed with 48-49 million dong per tael, SJC Company sold more than 26,000 taels in one day.
On the day of handing over all SJC commercial rights to the State Bank and taking on the status of a “processor”, Mr. Le Hung Dung in the role of Chairman of SJC’s Board of Members at that time, although happy but also little thought.
At that time, he joked, if SJC was a private enterprise, he would “fight” to the end, to demand the State Bank to pay for commercial rights. Because he is doing normal business, self-managing everything, now from the position of the owner to become the outsourcer. “Moreover, my biological son, now handed over to someone else, is also sad,” he said, adding that because they are the same state and for the same national interest, his company must accept it.
Since this milestone, along with Mr. Dung’s departure to retire in 2014, sales of SJC gold bars have also decreased sharply compared to before. The company currently focuses mainly on gold jewelry business.
According to the latest report, in 2021, this company recorded a revenue of nearly 17,700 billion VND, down nearly 25% compared to the same period in 2020 and the lowest level since 2014. This result is far below the sales target of 23,494 billion VND. The contract is assigned by the People’s Committee of Ho Chi Minh City, the governing body, to SJC.