News Room - Steel Industry

Posted on 15 Jul 2008

Vietnam may raise electricity, steel prices this year

   

Vietnam said it may raise prices of fuel, electricity and steel, revising a statement saying it would cap prices this year.

Bui Xuan Khu, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade, had said Vietnam wouldn’t raise prices for essential products, which include coal and fertilizer, according to the statement first posted on the government’s website July 8.

The remarks were removed from the statement late Wednesday.

Khu spoke in a conference call of business and government leaders to discuss the industrial outlook for the year.

Company officials on the call asked the government to allow them to raise prices amid soaring costs for commodities.

The move could help calm concern that state-owned enterprises may post losses because of price controls and spiraling inflation.

Consumer prices accelerated 26.8 percent from a year earlier in June, the fastest rate since 1992.

Petrolimex International Trading Joint-Stock Co., a state-owned company that trades agricultural and industrial commodities, reported a loss of more than VND1.8 trillion (US$107 million) because of price controls in the first half, according to General Director Bui Ngoc Bao.

The company faced a 46 percent increase in import costs in the six-month period, Bao said.

Electricity of Vietnam, the state-owned utility known as EVN, lost at least VND2.1 trillion ($124.7 million) in the first half, according to Chief Executive Pham Le Thanh.