The Ministry of Industry and Trade on Thursday worked with petrol wholesalers on the roadmap to replace RON 92 petrol with E5 bio-fuel from 2018.

Urging all petrol wholesalers to put in their utmost to make the switch, Deputy Minister Hoang Quoc Vuong said the deadline of January 1, 2018, would not be extended.

Using bio-fuel E5 will help protect the environment while putting four bio-fuel plants in Viet Nam back into business, thus creating jobs as well as incomes for farmers who are growing cassava, a material used to produce bio-fuel, Vuong said.

Vuong asked petrol wholesalers to invest in facilities this year to be able to distribute E5 bio-fuel across the country from the beginning of next year.

Additionally, the Ministry of Finance should put in place policies to ensure that the price of E5 bio-fuel is reasonable so as to encourage consumption, Vuong said.

Ten years after the project to develop bio-fuels was approved in 2007, bio-fuel has not been widely used in the domestic market so far.

Pham Duc Thang, deputy director of Petrolimex, said that petrol wholesalers must be offered incentives to promote the use of bio-fuels, especially in term of rates, as the cost of E5 remains higher than RON 92 petrol. — VNS