Vietnam to Resume Import Tariff on Oil Products
The Vietnam's Ministry of Finance will begin imposing a 5 per cent import tariff from today [November 9] on petroleum products, said state media.
Import duties, including gasoline, jet fuel, reformate and naphtha, were completely removed in March this year with an aim of helping importers and traders, all State-run, cope with high global oil prices.
Quach Duc Phap, director of Finance Ministry's Tax Policy Department, said the tariff were reintroduced because world oil prices had strongly dropped to around US$58 a barrel from a peak of around US$70 in August.
The Finance Ministry will keep unchanged import taxes on base oil and lubricating oil at 5 per cent and 10 per cent, respectively.
Phap said the ministry also has no plans to make changes to government-fixed retail prices of refined oil products, which have been raised three times this year.
Despite being Asia's sixth largest crude producer, Vietnam still depends on oil product imports because it lacks major refineries.
The country imported 9.64 million tons of petroleum products worth US$4.2 billion in the first ten months of this year, up 4.7 per cent in volume and 43.1 per cent in value.
B.T
Vietnamese
