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Iran revives fuel card to prevent fuel smuggling?

Oil&Gas Materials 23 January 2019 12:55 (UTC +04:00)

Tehran, Iran, Jan.23

Trend:

Iran is set to revive the domestic "fuel cards", as well as increasing the price on fuel, however some believe the fuel card revival is a pretext to increase the prices, and not really to control fuel smuggling.

Meanwhile, the spokesman of the Parliament Energy commission Asadollah Gharakhani told Trend that the government has no plan to increase the fuel price in the next Iranian year (March21,2019).

He said the parliament is reviewing the solutions to avoid the smuggling of fuel.

"The fuel card was experimental at first, due to volume of smuggled fuel and the possibility that fuel leaks from gas stations," he said. "Now the fuel card should be used to clarify the issue to see if the solution can have an effect on the problem."

According to Gharakhani, the government of Iran wants to use the fuel cards for rational use of fuel.

As far as the increase of fuel price goes, he said this is not mentioned in the next year's budget plan.

Further speaking, he said that the increase of fuel prices should only be targeted towards selected groups, not everyone.

"The target group be chosen for this decision , according to economists and producers. The price of fuel is very low compared to neighboring countries. This kind of cost should not be available to everyone. If supposedly the fuel price should stay low, it should be available only to people with low income, there's no need for rich social class to use this offer," he said.

He further pointed that the government should pay more attention to the low income class people.

"With regards to the increase of fuel price, there's another point of view, that since the price on other items have already increased, there shouldn't be any need to raise the fuel price too," he said.

"We should wait until the government submits the bill to the parliament for the review," said Gharakhani.

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