HANOI: To create a competitive environment among petroleum enterprises and implement price stabilisation under the Price Law, a draft of a new decree regarding oil and petroleum business will stipulate that enterprises decide their retail prices of petrol and oil.
Phan Van Chinh, director of the Domestic Market Department, Industry and Trade Ministry (MoIT), spoke at a meeting collecting opinions on this draft held in Hanoi on May 14 by MoIT and the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Chinh said that the oil and petroleum business decrees have been amended and supplemented many times, so they need to be merged into a new decree to make it easier for businesses, people and state management agencies to research and implement.
The new decree will replace the existing decrees relating to oil and petroleum business.
The draft is built on the principle of ensuring harmony of benefits for consumers and petroleum businesses, and ensuring petroleum supply for domestic consumption. At the same time, it reduces the state’s intervention in the oil and petroleum business activities of the enterprises.
Chinh emphasised four main contents in the draft including oil and petrol supply system, oil and petrol selling prices, the price stabilisation fund for those products, and the rights of businesses.
According to current regulations, the oil and petrol prices are managed by MoIT and the Finance Ministry. The petrol and oil traders fix retail prices of petrol and oil in their distribution system based on the basic prices announced by the two ministries.
With the current price management mechanism, the oil and petrol traders are not proactive in deciding the retail prices of the products in their distribution system. — Viet Nam News/ANN
