Petrol distributors attempting to raise retail prices
The petrol distributors have also asked for permission to cut the kerosene price on the world’s price decreases.
Vuong Thai Dung, Deputy General Director of Petrolimex, said that the A92 petrol that Petrolimex imports from Singapore has stayed at a high level for the past 20 days, at USD73 per barrel. Moreover, petrol prices have been increasing further in the last few days. With the import price levels, domestic retailers are incurring the loss of 1,000 dong per litre of petrol and mazut sold, according to the importers.
Representative from the ministries have confirmed that the ministries have received the proposal and say they will thoroughly consider the issue.
The A92 petrol in Singapore increased to $76.34 per barrel this morning, August 4, while 0.25S diesel has reached $77.48 and 0.05S to $77.830 per barrel.
Regarding retail prices, in mid July, representatives of the Ministries of Finance and Industry and Trade said that the ministries would ask distributors to lower retail petrol prices as import petrol prices were decreasing. However, no petrol importer initiated a petrol price decrease, saying that they were continuing to lose money on petrol sales.
The Ministries of Finance and Industry and Trade on July 29 held a meeting discussing amendments to Decree 55 on petrol trade management. At the meeting, the Ministry of Finance put forward three options for petrol price management.
Under the first option, importers would be entitled to adjust prices within 3 per cent either way. The rates would be 10 per cent for the second option and 7 per cent for the third.
At the meeting, Deputy Director of Vinh Phuc Industry and Trade Department Nguyen Thanh Toan said that the petrol market now needs some changes, and the thing that needs to be done immediately is to separate the existing 12,000 filling stations from petrol import companies, especially Petrolimex.
According to Toan, it is impossible to build more and more filing stations. Meanwhile, under the current regulations, every filling station can only sell the products of one distributor. If the regulations are not removed, Vietnam will never have a competitive petrol market.
