HÀ NỘI – The retail price of petrol fell VNĐ665 to reach VNĐ15,300 (US 68 cents) per litre at 3pm on July 20, 2016.

The ministries of Industry and Trade and Finance also issued a document asking petrol traders to lower the price of E5 RON 92 biofuel by VNĐ604 to VNĐ14,840 per litre.

The prices of other products such as diesel, kerosene and mazut remain unchanged at VNĐ12,300 per litre, VNĐ10,670 per litre and VNĐ9,000 per kilo, respectively.

This is the seventh price decrease so far this year.

The two ministries also decided to stop the use of the price stabilisation fund for petrol.

Usage of the fund for diesel was also reduced from VNĐ472 to VNĐ51 while kerosene was at VNĐ254 per litre and mazut was at VNĐ136 per kilo.  

The ministries said the decrease was due to lower petrol prices on the world market. Over the past 15 days, the average petrol price was $50,141 a barrel, 6.65 per cent less than the previous fortnight.

$2.5b spent on imported petrol

Việt Nam spent around US$2.5 billion on imports of petroleum in the first half of the year. Petroleum remains in the top 10 products with the biggest import revenue in the country, the General Customs Department said.

In the second half of June, Việt Nam imported $249 million petrol products, increasing 10 per cent over the first half of the month.

The department said the total import value in the period saw a slight increase of 1.3 per cent from the first half of June to $7.43 billion.

The increasing import value was attributed to computers, electronics and spare parts (7 per cent), machines, equipment (4.7 per cent), and pharmaceuticals (46 per cent).

Imports of some products also saw declines, such as home appliances and spare parts (25 per cent) and clothes (4.3 per cent).

By the end of last month, the country’s total import turnover was more than $80.43 billion, a 0.8 per cent year-on-year decrease. -- VNS