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Draft decree puts difficulties on small gas traders
With strict requirements on gas-tank covers and the capacity of gas depots, the draft decree on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) trade management is believed will drive small traders off the playing field.
Sales agents worried
Businessmen believe that the regulation on allowing sales agents to distribute gas products of no more than three brands will cause enterprises and consumers losses.
There are some 8,000 gas sales agents nationwide which distribute 700,000 tonnes of gas per annum. If every sales agent is allowed to distribute gas products of three brands only, consumers may not be able to find the gas products they want from nearby sales agents. Meanwhile, sales agents will have to spend more efforts to look for new clients and expand their business, which also means higher costs for them.
Nguyen Van Minh, Director of Nguyen Hong Gas Company, said that the limitation on the number of brand names to be distributed by every sales agents is ‘unacceptable’. If this occurs, sales agents will have to rely on the three gas producers. Even if the producers set unreasonably sky high price levels, sales agents will still have to distribute their products. In this case, consumers would be the biggest sufferers. And if producers do not have enough products to provide, sales agents will ‘die’ because they are not allowed to distribute products of other producers.
Importers not satisfied
There are some 60 gas producers that import empty gas tanks. The draft decree stipulates that importers must have 300,000 gas containers at least.
The draft regulation has not been applauded by importers, who believe that this would cause a big waste, since they would have to have a total of 18 million containers between them, for which they would have to pay 6,800 billion dong. Meanwhile, the total demand for gas tanks now is just 7 million a year, requiring the total investment capital of 2,700 billion dong.
There is another draft regulation that has caused worries for small enterprises: Businessmen are required to have depots with the capacity of 800 cubic metres at least. The figure is really small for big enterprises, while it is too big for small enterprises.
Many gas traders have asked on what basis the document compilers set the figures of 800 cubic metres in depot capacity and 300,000 gas tanks, affirming that if the drafted regulations are approved, small enterprises would be weeded out of the market.
Commenting about the draft decree, Lawyer Nguyen Van Hau from the HCM City Bar Association, said that while the state is trying to create favourable conditions for small- and medium-size enterprises to develop, the draft decree would place greater difficulties on them.
Analysts said that it would be better not to require gas distributors to build depots, because they can purchase products from enterprises which have advantages in depot business or import-export. Meanwhile, big importers, which do not have advantages in distribution, should not be required to spend 130 billion dong more to have 300,000 empty gas tanks. If the draft regulation is not implemented, this will benefit importers, distributors and consumers, as the gas price will be more competitive.
vietnamnet, nld
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