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Vietnam allows importers to set retail fuel prices
Vietnam, Asia's second-largest importer of petrol and diesel, has given oil product importers the right to set retail prices on their own as it moved to deregulate the fuel market and scrap oil subsidies.
The finance and trade ministries have so far been in charge of adjusting retail oil product prices in Vietnam. They have now established a committee to monitor oil product prices and approve importers' proposals to adjust retail prices.
'World oil prices have been falling continuously in the first 12 days of September so it is a good time to transfer oil products trading to a market-orientated mechanism,' Deputy Finance Ministry Tran Xuan Ha said in a statement on Wednesday.
Under the new mechanism, importers would have to register their plan to change retails prices with the committee, and if it has no objection, the new prices would automatically be effective three days later.
The government had attempted to let importers price their products in April last year but had to suspend the plan as it wanted to control fuel prices to curb inflation as oil rose.
Crude oil prices are now more than 35 percent lower than the record high above $147 a barrel hit in mid-July.
Hanoi would still fund importers to cover losses incurred before Sept. 16, which amounted to more than $500 million in the first half, but would scrap oil product subsidies for new imports from Sept. 16, the Vietnam News Agency quoted Ha as saying.
The Southeast Asian country, which relies almost entirely on oil product imports as it lacks refineries, reinstated import tariffs at 5 percent on refined products on Monday.
Hanoi last trimmed retail diesel prices by 2.8 percent on Tuesday and petrol prices by 5.6 percent on Aug. 27, the second cut in August alone, but domestic prices are still nearly 25 percent higher than at the beginning of 2008.
The government said last week it expected national annual demand for refined products to rise between 8 and 10 percent in the next two years.
Vietnam's first refinery, the 140,000-bpd Dung Quat plant, is expected to come on stream in February next year, meeting about 40 percent of the country's total demand for refined products.
Vietnam aims to be oil product self-sufficient by 2015 when three key refineries are completed.
Thanhnien
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