The three are the Dong Thap
Petroleum Company Ltd, Petect and Saigon Petro. If the plans come true, the
petrol price would increase three times in the last month by 3000 dong per
liter in total.
The production costs of the
enterprises in the eight production fields which consume much petrol and oil
may increase by 1-5 percent after the three time price increase.
Collecting tax for the budget – the top priority?
Under the Decree No. 84 on the
petroleum price management, enterprises can adjust the retail prices
themselves, if the basic price increases by up to seven percent. Meanwhile, the
State would apply suitable measures to stabilize the domestic retail prices.
When the petrol price was raised
on August 13, Nguyen Manh Hung, Chair of the Vietnam Automobile Transport
Association, said that the Ministry of Finance should use other tools to
stabilize the prices instead of approving the proposals by importers to raise
the retail prices.
“I think that it would be better
to slash the import tariff in order to minimize the bad impacts on the
society’s life,” he said.
Experts also think that the state
should think of cutting down some kinds of taxes and fees to pave the way for
distributors to ease the retail prices.
At present, a liter of petrol and
oil has to bear 6000-8000 dong worth of taxes and fees, including the import
tax, luxury tax, value added tax, environment protection tax, petrol price
stabilization fund and other expenses.
They have pointed out that people
now have to pay 7750 dong worth of taxes and fees for every liter of petrol and
oil they buy, if considering the average import price in the last 30 days.
Meanwhile, the sum of money would
be up to 7900 dong per liter, if considering the average import price in the
last 20 days. At present, petrol imports bear the import tariff of 12 percent.
The experts have also said if the
import tariff is lowered by two percent, the petrol price increase on August 13
would have been lower by 400 dong per liter.
Why didn’t the Ministry of
Finance consider lowering the import tariff to help reduce the retail price and
ease the heavy burden on the consumers? Is this because the ministry fears that
the lower tariffs would lead to the lower sums of money to be collected to the
state budget?
Curbing inflation – the Number two?
The General Statistics Office on
August 24 announced that the consumer price index (CPI) in August increased by
0.63 percent over the previous month, the highest increase since Tet, stressing
that the petroleum price increases have pushed the index up.
The petrol price has increased by
12 percent over the last month. If following the Ministry of Finance’s formula,
if the petroleum price increases by 12 percent, this would make the inflation
rate increase by 1.5-2 percent. Besides, the price increase would have domino
effects on the production fields.
Hung said passenger transport
enterprises prove to be the biggest sufferers from the petrol price increases.
They did not dare to raise the transportation service fee, even though the
petrol and oil prices have been increasing sharply. However, they would have to
reconsider the fees, if the petrol prices keep rising.
The government always highlights
the macroeconomic stability as the top priority task. However, the efforts to
curb inflation made so far this year may be erased by the continued petrol
price increases.
Source: Lao dong
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