The government will think of ways to ensure that the increase in fuel prices will not affect the rakyat, Finance Minister II Johari Abdul Ghani said today.
He said this in response to the possibility of oil price increasing to US$100 per barrel.
"The mechanism is more or less already available but we will think about it later and announce it when the time comes.
"For now, the prices of fuel are quite reasonable so we leave it (the mechanism) for now," he told reporters in Kuala Lumpur today.
The increase in prices of fuel, he added, was also less frequent.
"It's still in the positive bracket and we will monitor this."
The minister had earlier on explained the government's weekly ceiling price system mechanism, stating that the increase and decrease in fuel prices which were based on the global market can now be observed on a weekly basis.
"The price of fuel is not determined by the government. We base it on the global market and now show it to rakyat on a weekly basis.
"Previously, fuel prices were announced on a monthly basis so the rakyat cannot see what happens in a month, they don't see the increase and decrease of prices of fuel."
More transparent
This, he said, was the reason why announcements on the prices of fuel may not tally with the current price of crude oil.
"Fuel prices increased based on calculations made in a month. To overcome this problem, we decided to make weekly announcements."
The retail price for RON95, RON97 petrol and diesel, in the first weekly ceiling price system announcement last month, went down down 17 sen, 19 sen and 9 sen respectively.
, the price of RON95 petrol and diesel went up by RM0.08 per litre beginning this week while the price of RON97 petrol saw a hike of RM0.09 per litre.
This was the second consecutive week in which petrol prices have increased, following the introduction of the weekly ceiling price mechanism introduced by Putrajaya.
Monthly fuel prices were previously determined based on a managed float system called "Automatic Pricing Mechanism" (APM).
It determines the month's fuel price by factoring the average market value of a particular fuel and the ringgit's strength in the preceding month.-Mkini
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.