The government is considering cutting retail gasoline prices after global oil prices eased recently, Vietnamese deputy finance minister Truong Chi Trung told the press Friday
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The government is considering cutting retail gasoline prices after global oil prices eased recently, Vietnamese deputy finance minister Truong Chi Trung told the press Friday.
The finance and trade ministries might reduce gas prices by VND500 (3 US cents) per liter but they would do so after monitoring oil prices a bit longer, Trung said.
Representatives of major oil importers, including Petrolimex and Saigon Petro, told reporters that the proposed cut was “acceptable.”
But, any further cuts would wipe out importers’ profits, they said.
Despite being a major crude producer,
Skyrocketing global crude oil prices in the first half of this year forced the Vietnamese government to hike petrol prices three times.
The proposal to cut gas prices showed that the government’s petrol pricing policy was “flexible,” Dr. Vo Tri Thanh of the Central Institute for Economic Management said.
After putting up prices in the past, by cutting them this time instead of increasing taxes, the government would appear “fair” to consumers, especially since it had decided to gradually cut subsidies on petrol, Thanh said.
However, Dr. Tran Dinh Thien of the Vietnam Economy Institute criticized the plan as “risky” considering oil prices remained unpredictable.
Besides, “reducing VND500 would not solve any problem but would instead cause the government to lose some tax revenues and worsen cross-border petrol smuggling,” he said.
(Source: Thanhniennews)
