Taxi fares, transport costs set to rise on fuel price hikes
Mai Linh Corporation, Vietnam’s leading taxi firm, and some other taxi operators said they planned an increase of VND500 per kilometer for all kinds of cabs from September 4.
“Since June, gasoline prices have gone up four times. We kept taxi fares stable the first three times but now we have to raise the fares,” said Truong Quang Man, deputy general director of Mai Linh, “With current gasoline prices, we will lose VND20,000 for a cab traveling 200 kilometers per day if we don’t up the fares.”
Mai Linh taxi fares currently range from VND10,000 to VND12,000 per kilometer.
Oil product retailers Sunday raised the popular 92-octane petrol price to VND15,700 per liter, from VND14,700. Diesel prices rose 8.3 percent to VND13,100 per liter and kerosene 6.5 percent to VND14,000 per liter.
The HCMC Goods Transport Association said transport costs would advance at least 4 percent. Container transport operators plan to increase charges by 5 percent.
Some traders who buy pigs from farms to resell to wholesale markets or slaughterhouses said livestock transport costs are also at the mercy of fuel prices.
Tran Quang Trung, who normally buys pigs from the southern province of Dong Nai to supply Tan Xuan Market in Ho Chi Minh City’s Hoc Mon District, said he now has to pay VND1.3 million, VND200,000 more than before, to transport 30 pigs.
Nguyen Thanh Ha, deputy sales director of Thu Duc Farm Products Wholesale Market in HCMC, said the cost of transporting farm produce is likely to double.
