Customers at a filling station in the capital's Tay Ho District. The petrol price stabilisation fund stood at VND55.4 billion (US$2.6 million) at the end of June. — VNA/VNS Photo Pham Kien

HA NOI (Biz Hub)— The petrol price stabilisation fund stood at VND55.4 billion (US$2.6 million) at the end of June, the Ministry of Finance reported this week.

According to its first edition of quarterly statistics related to the management and use of the fuel price stabilisation fund published on its website on Tuesday, 12 petrol dealers had contributed to the fund.

Seven of those using the fund now have positive fund balances, such as the Viet Nam National Petroleum Group (Petrolimex) and the Military Petroleum Corporation.

This disclosure was pursuant to a request made by Deputy Prime Minister Vu Van Ninh on May 3, when he asked the Finance Ministry to publicise the data on the fund every quarter to provide transparency.

The Finance Ministry said the fund balance at the end of June was at VND55.4 billion ($2.6 million), a drop of roughly VND680 billion ($31.6 million) compared to last year's figure.

Since 2009, the fund balance has never been in the red and reached a high of VND1.8 trillion ($84.6 million) in 2010.

It fell to roughly VND1.5 trillion ($70.5 million) in 2011, VND740 billion ($34.8 million) in 2012 and VND55.4 billion at the end of June 2013.

The finance ministry said the fund had helped to keep petrol prices down since 2009, and retail prices would have risen VND2,000 per litre last Tet without the fund, rather than the hike of VND1,430.

However, the finance ministry said there were still many different opinions about the use of the fund so the Ministry of Industry and Trade and other relevant ministries were making amendments to Decree 84 on the trading petrol and oil.

Currently, fuel companies must extract VND300 per kilo or litre of oil and petrol to add to the price stabilisation fund.

The latest increase in petrol and oil prices on June 28 were between VND300-370 per litre to VND24,110 for RON 92 petrol and VND21,840 for diesel oil. — VNS