4:55:43 PM | 31/10/2008
The Vietnamese Ministries of Finance, and Industry and Trade are considering doubling petroleum import tax to 10 per cent from current 5 per cent in line with recent global oil price fall to around US$60 per barrel, state media reported.
The move is aimed at ensuring state revenues in the circumstance of falling crude oil export revenue, the ministries said.
Although the Ministry of Finance Sept 15 hiked the tax rate to 5 per cent from zero percent, the government has not yet made up for the state deficit of VND25 trillion (US$1.51 billion) from 2007 to date due to application of zero-percent petroleum import tax, the VnExpress daily reported.
Vuong Thai Dung, deputy general director of Vietnam National Petroleum Corp (Petrolimex) said, “We advocate tax hike as the world oil price tumble will affect the country’s crude oil export.”
He noted that the sharp fall in the global oil price is happy news but Petrolimex has not yet imported goods with such low rate and has no price cut plan for presence.
Vietnam’s current retail gasoline prices of VND15,500/liter of A92 and VND16,000/liter of A95 is still higher than the rates of between VND12,024/liter and VND15,570/liter in some countries in the world.
In the wake of the global oil prices, many countries and territories worldwide have slashed gasoline retail price, to average VND15,393/liter in the U.S., VND13,527/liter in Thailand, VND15,570 in China, VND12,024 in Malaysia, and VND14,028 in Taipei-China. (Labor, VnExpress)
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