HA NOI (Biz Hub)— The Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Industry and Trade yesterday ordered traders to drop retail petrol prices by 1.6 per cent per litre from 8pm.

Prices for RON 95 and RON 92 petrol were subsequently reduced to VND24,380 ($1.15) and VND23,880 ($1.13) per litre respectively. The diesel and kerosene prices were unchanged.

The decision was made shortly after the Ministry of Finance publicised the updated status of Viet Nam's petrol price stabilisation fund, which has been used to keep petrol prices down.

The fund stood at VND58.6 billion ($2.7 million) at the end of September after rising over VND3 billion ($141,911), the Ministry of Finance has stated in the quarterly report on its website.

According to the latest statistics, of the 12 petrol dealers who contributed to the fund, six of them had a positive fund balance. Petrolimex's balance until the end of September stood at over VND205 billion ($9.7 million). It was followed by the Military Petroleum Corporation with over VND180 billion.

However, until September 30, PVOil reported a negative fund balance of more than VND209 billion ($9.88 million) and Petec Trading&Investment Corporation also saw a loss of over VND145 billion ($6.86 million).

Recently, Minister of Finance Dinh Tien Dung stated that the ministry would publish data every quarter rather than every month to save the time and expenses of relevant agencies, adding that this was a perfectly appropriate policy. — VNS