The Ministry of Finance is considering raising the petrol retail price and lowering import tax since the crude oil price increased continuously in the last days, hitting the US$66/barrel level today.
Light sweet crude oil was traded at US$65.88 per barrel in New York market yesterday (delivery in May). In London, the Brent oil with delivery in May was also traded at high level, US$68.58 per barrel, an increase of UScent48 over the previous level.
Concerned about the price increases in the world’s market, officials of the Ministry of Finance gathered yesterday, discussing the solutions on tax and retail price adjustment. Two solutions have been put on the table. In the first solution, one of the two things needs to be done, either to lower the import tax on petrol from 10% to 5%, or raise the retail price by VND500-1,000/litre. In the second plan, lowering tax and raising selling prices would be carried out concurrently.
According to an official from the Ministry of Finance, the adjustment would be necessary only when the world’s oil price increases for a long period, while there is no hard pressure on raising domestic petrol prices at the moment. Prior to that, on March 6, when the world’s price stayed at US$65 per barrel, the domestic petrol price was raised by VND900/litre already, while import tax was lowered from 15% to 10%.
