The Ministry of Finance is working on mechanisms to regulate the prices of staple goods including petrol, electricity and coal.
A litre of octane 92 gasoline is sold at VND23,650
According to the ministry, the scenarios are expected to help regulate the market in the last months of this year and beyond.
She did however reveal that a mechanism to regulate petrol prices would be drafted in accordance with regulations laid out in Decree No. 84 on petroleum trading.
“Taxes and the use of the petrol price stabilisation fund will be employed. The ministry will select particular tools to regulate the market at certain period of time in order to ensure the interests of the government, businesses and the people,” she noted.
Concerning the plan to amend Decree 84, Nguyen Anh Tuan, Deputy Director of the ministry’s Price Management Department, said that the ministries of finance, and industry and trade were co-ordinating before drafting any amendments. However, they have yet to reach an agreement on any content of amendment.
Regarding petrol prices in September, Tuan explained that even though global petrol prices had fallen during the month, imported petrol prices over the past month are still higher than current retail prices, which explained the lack of movement on prices.
On September 11, the two ministries issued a joint dispatch to request all petrol wholesalers to maintain retail prices. The ministries had decided to lower petrol import taxes by 2%. They would also continue to subsidise petrol prices by VND500 per litre from the petrol price stabilisation fund to offset the price disparity.
