Putrajaya rubbishes gossip of a price hike tonight, although minister warns the public to be prepared for a future increase.
Tan Lian Hoe, the deputy minister of Domestic Trade, Co-operative and Consumerism, said the country’s Economic Council had not met to discuss RON95′s pricing yet.
“There is a review every six months. The last increase was in December and we have not discussed this review yet,” she told FMT.
“We need to look at the impact of a price hike on the rakyat, as well as take into account world market prices of oil.”
Tan, however, was not able to comment on the review meeting’s expected date, saying that she herself did not know.
Nevertheless, she quashed rumours of a 20-sen hike in RON95 at midnight tonight, putting the petrol’s price at RM2.10.
Diesel, LPG and RON95 are subject to price revisions by government agencies every six months, according to the Performance Management and Delivery Unit’s (Pemandu) subsidy rationalisation plan.
Minimal increase
Malaysian Twitter users were abuzz with this alleged increase.
One known as lohhw3 commented: “Petrol increase to RM2.10 for RON95. And it’s gonna stay that way for six frakking months!”
Even so, Tan warned Malaysians to be prepared, especially with the rising price of oil worldwide.
According to the Live Oil Prices website, Brent crude oil futures for July 2011 delivery was trading at US$111.54 a barrel.
In January, FMT reported that benchmark for Brent crude oil was priced at US$98.93 a barrel.
With these prices in tow, Tan assured the public that any increase to RON95′s prices would be “very, very minimal”.
“We are trying to cushion the price as much as possible. We are trying our very best,” the deputy minister said.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.