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Petrol distributors: price decrease not being considered
People’s hopes of a petrol price decrease did not come true as a price decrease has been announced for diesel only. Petrol distributors say that they do not intend to institute a petrol price decrease at present.
The sentiments of people
“When will the petrol price decrease? I’m a newly graduated student, and now I can earn less than VND1mil a month from my new job. The petrol price remains overly high for me,” a VietNamNet reader wrote on canhcuong85@gmail.com.
A quick survey on VietNamNet showed that over 70% of readers think the petrol price should drop further by VND2,000/litre, while 12.76% of readers want the petrol price to drop by VND1,000/litre further, and 10.68% of readers want the import tax to be lowered, so that the petrol price can be slashed by more than VND2,000/litre. Only 6.51% of polled readers said that they want the petrol price to stay at the current level.
Most of the polled readers believe that the currently applied petrol prices are too high compared to the crude oil price and retail petrol prices in other countries.
Ngo Tri Long from the Ministry of Finance’s Market and Price Research Institute said that in the current conditions, it is necessary to prioritise slashing the retail petrol price, which also means that the state should keep a reasonable tax rate on petrol imports.
The arguments of businesses
Vuong Thai Dung, Deputy General Director of Petrolimex, which is now holding the biggest share in the petrol distribution market, stressed that it cannot lower the petrol price any further, or it will incur losses.
Dung said that Petrolimex has had to slash the diesel price by VND1,000/litre, which will make it unprofitable to sell that product.
Dung added that the compensation for the losses enterprises incurred before when keeping sale prices low despite the world’s price skyrocketing has not been fully paid out. The Prime Minister has agreed on the compensation, but there has not been a document issued to guide the decision.
Meanwhile, experts say that as the world’s petrol price has dropped to $36-38/barrel, and with the import prices, the petrol price should be VND8,500-9,000/litre only.
Phuoc Ha
vietnamnet
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