Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung November 28 requested relevant ministries and agencies to stop to compensate losses for petroleum, and some other industrial sectors, from 2008, a source from the government said.
“We [the government] has to compensate as many as VND10 trillion (US$625 million) for petroleum imports per year,” the PM said at a recent meeting on financial tasks and State estimates for 2008, which was held November 28 in Hanoi.
Dung noted the money should be used to undertake many other national crucial tasks instead of compensation, and the government will no longer subsidize for the cement and coal sectors from next year.
“The government will not encourage coal and ore exports from 2008; therefore, tax authorities must devise measures to levy suitable export tax rates on these goods to reduce exports, save national energy, and serve demand,” the PM elaborated.
The government will continue its schedule to compensate losses of the electricity sector to help it gradually raise its competence and ensure sufficient power supply for domestic need, he added.
“The government will step by step slash compensation for the power sector, to come to the end of the policy in the future,” Dung said.
Recently, the Ministry of Finance has forecast Vietnam would have to prolong its schedule to compensate losses for petroleum to mid-2008 instead of this year’s end as planned before.
State-owned gasoline trading companies in Vietnam were estimated to lose more than VND6 trillion (US$375 million) in the first ten months of this year, said the Ministry of Trade and Industry.
The figure is estimated to escalate to around VND12 trillion (US$750 million) by the end of this year if the global oil price continues standing at over US$90 per barrel, warned the ministry. (Pioneer)
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