Petroleum price rose yesterday evening. — Photo nld

HA NOI (Biz Hub) — The Ministries of Finance and Industry and Trade yesterday evening allowed key petroleum dealers to raise the price of gasoline by a maximum of VND426 (2 US cents) and diesel by no more than VND221 (1 cent) per litre.

The highest retail price will therefore be VND23,756 ($1.12) for a litre of RON 92 gasoline and VND21,471 ($1.02) for a litre of diesel. Kerosene and fuel oil prices remained unchanged at VND21,300 ($1.01) and VND18,450 ($0.88) respectively.

The Viet Nam National Petroleum Group (Petrolimex), which represents nearly half of the domestic retail petroleum market, increased its gasoline price to VND23,750 and diesel price to VND21,470, announced company Deputy General Director Tran Ngoc Nam.

The ministries said they made the decision following market developments.

After global petroleum prices tended to go up early last month, the Ministry of Finance cut import taxes for the commodities from 19 per cent to 18 per cent and enabled firms to use the price stabilisation fund with subsidy levels of VND160-400 per litre.

But world prices continued to rise since then and yesterday's adjustments were necessary to harmonise the interest of enterprises and customers.

This was the first price increase since the end of April after three consecutive cuts. Petroleum prices hit a record high of VND24,580 ($1.17) per litre in March. — VNS