Vaporous

Local authorities and gas store owners remain unclear about the Government’s new regulations on quality, weight and selling prices of gas products, effective since January 15.

Workers of the Southern Gas Co bottle 15kg gas cannisters. New regulations on quality, weight and retail prices of gas are confusing local authorities and gas store owners.

Pham Ngoc Thu, head of the Business Office of the Petrolimex Gas, said the problem was that: “There is no guidance for implementing the new regulations and no framework to fine businesses that violate it.”

Thu expressed hope that the new regulations would help to eliminate fraudulent gas businesses, but at the same time questioned the practicality of the regulations.

Under the new regulations, gas enterprises have to announce the selling price to consumers and insure all retail agents promptly update gas prices after an announcement is made. Retail agents licences will also be limited to sales of only three types of gas products.

According to Thu, the gas business is different from petrol as the latter is usually bought at a station. Gas canisters by contrast, are delivered directly to people’s houses and as such gas sales are much more difficult to regulate.

A recent inspection by the Ministry of Finance showed that from six major gas companies, only one offered listed prices to retailers.

Agreeing with Thu, Nguyen Nhu Mai, deputy director of the Ha Noi Department of Industry and Trade, said the regulation needs to have a more specific implementation guide for it to be effective.

“The regulation said, for example, in order to receive a permit, a store’s employees must be professionally trained. But it’s still not clear which local authorities will be in charge of this training,” she said.

There are many ministries regulating the gas market. “If all of these organisations had training centres, it would be difficult and confusing for enterprises to follow,” she added.

According to Mai, there should be just one training centre to ensure increased control and oversight.

“If we don’t manage this training well, it can lead to the possibility that gas stores buy faked certificates for their employees,” Mai said.

The act of issuing certificates for stores is also a challenge. According to this new regulation, the provincial people’s committees are in charge of issuing business permits for gas enterprises that store less than 5,000 cubic metres of gas.

Mai said her department has requested the ministry to give authorities to relevant district offices to issue the permits because her department cannot issue 1,500 certificates required by the deadline.

Meanwhile, many gas store owners are still not aware of this new regulation.

“I haven’t been told in details about this new regulation but I think it will be good because it protects honest businesses. I just hope the government follows through with it,” said Dung, a gas store owner at 78 Yen Phu Street in Ha Noi.

According to Hoang Tho Xuan, head of the Domestic Market department of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the new regulation will help the State to closely control the gas market.

The ministry has been working on a detailed guidance to accompany the regulation and expects to have it officially released in about two months, according to the legislation office.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News

Tags: Vietnam gas