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Taxi firms complain about fluctuating petrol prices
What most worries taxi firms nowadays is not high petrol prices and low profit, but the continuous movement of petrol prices, due to which they cannot fix taxi fares.
Lowering fees? It’s a waste of time and money
The petrol price once surged sharply by VND4,500/litre, and then five times decreased, and is now staying at VND15,500/litre. The price just decreased a little, by VND500 or VND1,000/litre, each time.
Taxi firms in HCM City complain that the continuous price decreases have put big difficulties on their business. They really want to cut fees as the price of petrol has decreased to become competitive. However, cutting fees turns out to be not an easy job: It is costly and takes time to adjust fares.
Ta Long Hy, General Director of Vinasun Taxi, said that his firm lowered fares by VND500/km after the petrol price changed twice.
Hy said that the petrol price just makes up 20-30% of taxi fares. Taxi firms have to pay for other expenses, while bank interest rates increased sharply several months ago. When the petrol price increased sharply by VND4,500/litre on July 21, taxi firms raised fares by VND1,500/km only.
Hy said that with the current petrol price, taxi firms still cannot make profit. Vinasun, according to Hy, is still incurring the loss of VND10,000/taxi/day.
However, taxi firms are still considering lowering fees. Future Star and Mai Linh said they are calculating fee decreases. But leaders of the both firms complained that the procedures on fee adjustment prove to be very complicated and tiring.
Truong Quang Man, Deputy General Director of Mai Linh Taxi, said that enterprises have to do a lot of things to fulfill procedures for adjusting taxi fees. They have to build up new fees and register the fees with the local departments of transport and finance, then the local taxation body. They also have to publish the fee adjustments in the official gazette, while the official fee adjustment does not go into effect for another three days.
Moreover, enterprises have to take cars to be inspected and to have the meters re-programmed and go through even more complicated steps. Man said that his company has to pay the registration fee of VND140,000 per car. This spells that with 6,000 cars, Mai Linh has to pay VND840mil in registration fees each time it adjusts prices.
A suitable mechanism needed
“As a business, we well know how to struggle to survive. We will not kill ourselves by setting overly high fees to become uncompetitive. We need a more suitable price control scheme,” said Man from Mai Linh.
While Future and Mai Linh said they are considering lowering fares, other firms said they do not intend to lower fees as the petrol price has just decreased by a little.
“It is very difficult for us to lower the taxi fee now with modest petrol price decreases. We will cut the fee if the petrol price decreases by VND2,000/litre,” said Dinh Quang Hien, Chairman of the HCM City Taxi Association, Director of Satraco.
Taxi firms all said that with the current crude oil prices, the petrol price should decrease by another VND1,500-2,000/litre.
VNN
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