ALOR GAJAH: The price of RON95 petrol might be lowered if crude oil prices fall below RM254 a barrel.
Deputy Finance Minister Datuk Ahmad Maslan said the RON95 petrol price of RM2.30 per litre without tax could be reduced if crude oil prices hovered between RM234 and RM251 per barrel.
“I will make a recommendation to the Fiscal Policy Committee to reduce the price of RON95 petrol if the price of global crude oil continues to drop.
“I will also propose that no sales tax be imposed on the purchase of RON95 when its price is reduced in the future,” he said after attending a briefing on the Goods and Services Tax at Institut Kemahiran Belia Negara in Masjid Tanah near here yesterday.
Ahmad was responding to a question on the government’s plan after the global crude oil fell to a four-year low, below RM268 a barrel, a few days ago.
He said such proposal was plausible based on the information received from those who are in charge in the country's oil subsidy affairs.
“We would like to see whether the prices of goods will also go down if the government decided to reduce the RON95 petrol price,” he said.
On another matter, Ahmad said the number of companies registered for the GST stood at 144,286 as of Nov 15, an increase of 13,732 from the figures recorded as of Nov 8.
He said the number of companies registering for the GST would continue to increase before the Dec 31, 2014 deadline.
“We are confident that the government’s target to get about 200,000 companies to register for the GST by year-end would be achieved,” he said.