Vietnam may allow more petroleum traders

Vietnam’s Ministry of Industry and Trade has recently proposed that the government allow more companies to trade petroleum products by lifting the current regulation, state-run Lao Dong newspaper said. Under the current regulation, only 11 state-owned companies are eligible to trade petroleum products. They often apply the same retail prices, despite the government’s market-oriented petroleum price regulation mechanism which allows traders to adjust their retail prices by a maximum of 500 dong (US$0.03) per liter if global crude oil prices continue to rise by more than 500 dong (US$0.03) per liter for 20 consecutive days. (September 21, 2009)