Vietnam to ease price controls

Vietnam, which relies on oil product imports as it lacks major refineries, plans to give more freedom to state-run importers to set retail gasoline prices to reduce losses caused by fluctuating world oil prices. The e-newspaper Dan Tri on March 2 quoted Finance Minister Vu Van Ninh as saying the ministry would issue a set of fixed retail prices and tariffs for gasoline which correspond to different levels of world crude oil prices in the first quarter of this year. Dominant gasoline importer Petrolimex now retails the popular 92-octane petrol at VND10,100 (US$0.63) per liter. (March 5, 2007)