Vietnam Not to Raise Electricity, Water, Coal Prices This Year

The Vietnamese government has instructed sectors and enterprises not to increase charges of electricity, running water and coal before the end of this year.

The government also asked them to maintain stable prices of other important goods, regardless of their smaller profits, the newspaper quoted Vietnamese Finance Minister Vu Van Ninh as saying.

If they want to raise prices of certain products, enterprises in Viet Nam should register with relevant agencies which will consider its rationality, he said.

On July 21, Viet Nam increased its retail price of standard petroleum by 31 percent, mainly to lower state subsidy and prevent smuggling of the product to neighbor countries.

With the latest petroleum price hike, the second so far this year, Viet Nam will still have to make state subsidy of some 53,000 trillion Vietnamese dong (3.3 billion U.S. dollars) for petroleum products in the second half of this year, the newspaper said.