Vietnam irritated about subsidizing gazoline in Cambodia

11/07/2008
Border filling stations asked to check oil smuggling

VietNamNet Bridge – Filling stations in Tay Ninh Province bordering Cambodia have been told to stop selling petrol in bulk to buyers in an effort to prevent oil products from flowing into the neighboring country where petrol is priced higher, a local official said.

Do Thanh Hoa, director of the provincial Department of Industry and Trade, told the Daily his department had just required all petrol stations in the province not to sell petrol to the buyers who use cans or barrels to contain the fuel.

"The order is already given to all 285 gas stations in the province as more people are increasingly involved in smuggling petrol from the province to Cambodia in recent months," Hoa told the Daily on Tuesday. He explained that at the time being, the petrol price in Cambodia is some US$1.2 per liter while the price in the province is much cheaper, at less than VND15,000, or some 90 US cents.

Many motorbike riders have been stealthily transporting petrol in plastic cans to Cambodia to earn a wide margin, he said.

"Early this year, we limited the volume of petrol sold to all stations in the border zone to some 150,000 liters each per month to check the illicit trade. Since then, many smugglers have gone further inland to buy the gas with large amount in cans and barrels," Hoa said.

To put a choke on the illegal gas transport across the border, gas stations along the border have been asked to sell a maximum 50 liters of petrol for each buyer at one time.

According to Hoa, the department last week closed a gas station in the province for violating the order.

Hoa estimated that oil smuggling has fallen by some 30% compared to the high time in March.

In the first six months of the year, the province's market monitoring agencies confiscated some 75,000 liters of petrol found being illegally trafficked to Cambodia.

The Market Monitoring Department under the Ministry of Industry and Trade said that petrol smuggling in the Mekong Delta tended to increase lately, with some 15,000 liters of petrol smuggled to Cambodia per day.

(Source: SGT)

Vietnam orders the closing down of boder gas stations involved in smuggling to Cambodia

Fuel smuggling in government’s sights

Sunday, July 6, 2008
Thanh Nien News

The Minister of Industry and Trade has ordered local authorities to close down border gas stations involved in gasoline smuggling.

As world oil prices continue to rise, Vietnam’s government-subsidized gasoline can be sold in Cambodia for a tidy profit.

Fuel smuggling is a growing problem in some southern provinces that border Cambodia, such as Kien Giang, An Giang, Long An, Tay Ninh and Dong Thap.

Deputy Minister Nguyen Cam Tu on Friday called for a thorough investigation of the activities of gas stations near the border.

Provincial authorities in border areas must set up special task forces to inspect fuel trading.

From August 1, only gas export and import companies will be allowed to supply fuel to gas stations in border areas.

Previously, many gas stations bought their fuel through agents.

Under the ministry’s decision, border gas station customers will not be able to fill containers with fuel.

Customers will only be able to fill up their vehicles at these gas stations.

Customers with foreign-registered vehicles will not be charged the domestic price for fuel.

Border gas stations will not be able to sell fuel before 6 a.m. and after 6 p.m.

People planning to open a new gas station in a border area will have to get approval from both the Minister of Industry and Trade and the Ministry of Defense before opening.

Source: TPO

Truckers smuggle petrol to Cambodia

A smuggler uses a motorcycle to transport petrol through the border crossing in An Giang

24/06/2008
SGGP (Hanoi)

VietNamNet Bridge - Ten of thousands of liters of petrol is smuggled to Cambodia everyday from the Mekong Delta province of An Giang. The smugglers start work at the crack of dawn in the border town of Tinh Bien when trucks with Cambodian plates begin waiting to buy petrol.

A smuggler says that despite a recent price hike in Viet Nam, he can still make a big profit. For many, petrol smuggling is their only way to eke out an existence.

Selling oil generates more profit than does selling petrol. They earn VND70,000 (US$4.20) for a 30-liter can of oil.

Smugglers usually gather in Tan Khanh Hoa, Phu My, and Phu Loi communes. In this area, the frontier is the 30 meter-wide Giang Thanh River. Hundreds of cans can be smuggled across the river in an hour.

To cope with the border guards, law violators pay farmer to use rice fields as shortcuts. Some gas stations are so greedy they won’t sell during the day so that they have more to sell to smugglers at night. In the evening, smugglers line up in front of station for a chance to buy.

Some stations owners are willing to provide thousands liters of petrol to smugglers who will pay a higher price.

To curb speculation, the Ministry of Industry and Trade has sent its men to stations to check whether any station refuses to provide service on its own initiative while it still has adequate petrol in its storage tanks. Any station that violates this rule risks a suspension of its business license.

Although the illegal activity is disorganized, law enforcement has confiscated nearly 2,000 liters of petrol in a half month. Although smuggling has been discussed in the media for years, the authorities have not yet come up with any effective countermeasures.

Smuggling [to Cambodia] prompts petrol supply cut [along the border]

28-05-2008
VNS (Hanoi)

TAY NINH — With the smuggling of petrol out of the country becoming rampant in Tay Ninh, the province’s Department of Industry and Trade has instructed oil enterprises to limit monthly supplies to retailers in border communes to 150,000 litres.

If a retailer required more than 150,000 litres, the department said it would survey the actual need before supplying enough stocks.

Nguyen Hong Khanh, the department’s deputy director, said some retailers bought 400,000 – 500,000 litres per month, much above the actual need.

On average, 10,000 –15,000 litres are smuggled into Cambodia through Kien Giang Province every day. However, three to four times the quantity is sold by fishermen to foreign vessels at sea.

The latter activity mostly happens off Tien Hai village and north of Phu Quoc Island.

Local authorities are unable to prevent it because it happens mostly at night and the maritime police force is too small and does not have enough vessels.

Busy contraband trade across Vietnam-Cambodia border

Illegal trade of gasoline and sugar across the Cambodia-Vietnam border is now rampant in some southern Mekong Delta provinces.

Monday, May 12, 2008
Thanh Nien News (Hanoi)

Amid escalating world oil prices, Vietnam’s gasoline price, which is partly subsidized by the government, is lower than Cambodia’s fuel by VND5,500-7,500 (US$0.34-0.46) per liter.

Vietnam’s diesel and kerosene prices are also about VND3,000 ($0.19) cheaper.

An Giang Province’s Market Management Department estimated some 40,000 to 60,000 liters of fuel were trafficked out of the province daily.

The department named An Phu District, Tinh Bien District and Chau Doc Town as localities where fuel smuggling is rife.

A veteran trafficker N.V.M. said about 20 “businessmen” direct several dozens of people to smuggle gasoline, diesel and kerosene from Tinh Bien border town to Cambodia by water and land.

Fuel traffickers often mix kerosene into gasoline to earn more profit from sales, another trafficker named T.V.B. said.

Sometimes they add tra catfish oil into gasoline to “export,” T.V.B. said.

Domestic sugar prices, meanwhile, are higher than smuggled sugar by VND500-1,000 per kilogram, precipitating an illegal influx of the commodity into Vietnam.

Thailand’s sugar smuggled into Mekong Delta provinces via Cambodian traders is causing difficulty to sugar companies in the region.

Can Tho Sugar Company (Casuco) General Director Nguyen Thanh Long said although the company had reduced its sugar prices to VND8,000 per kilogram compared to early last month, it is still hard to compete with smuggled sugar, which is sold at about VND7,600 per kilogram.

Long said the company outlets in Can Tho City were now only able to sell between 50 and 100 tons of sugar daily, two to three times lower than before.

He also said around 300-400 tons of sugar are smuggled into the Mekong Delta region each day.

In An Giang Province, smuggled sugar bags are often falsely labeled before market distribution to avoid anti-contraband detection.

Source: SGGP

More petrol smuggled into Cambodia [from Vietnam]

07/01/2008

VietNamNet Bridge - Petroleum smuggling to Cambodia from southern Viet Nam's Mekong River Delta has been dramatically increasing recently due to the latest rise in world petroleum prices.

It is reported that petroleum has been hidden in 20-30 liter plastic cans and then transported by small boats, carrier tricycles or motorbikes across the border. Some smugglers have even carried cans of petroleum on their backs.

At the Tinh Bien border, it is estimated that between 1,000 and 2,000 cans of petroleum are illegally transported from Viet Nam to Cambodia daily while reports from the Tinh Bien Border Anti- Smuggling Forces pointed out that less than 1,500 liters of smuggled petroleum were seized in 2007.

In An Phu District of An Giang Province, plastic cans of petroleum have been transported through the border by carrier tricycles and motorbikes to Binh Di riverside where they were unloaded and then transported on small boats into Cambodia.

At present, a liter of petroleum in Viet Nam is VND4, 000 - 5,000 lower than in Cambodia.

In related news, in response to rumors that petrol prices will soar to VND17,000 a liter within the next few days, Deputy Minister of the Industry and Trade, Nguyen Cam Tu asserted that despite a sharp increase in the world petroleum price in early this year, no local petroleum corporation has recently proposed to hike their petrol price at the pumps.

Mr. Tu added that world petroleum prices climbed to US$100 a barrel on January 3 and stated that this shift was just a temporary fluctuation. He suggested that due to this, petroleum corporations cannot propose a rise in pump prices.

According to market specialists, the rumor may originate from a new proposal which has been recently submitted to the government for consideration. Accordingly, the Government will no longer set the ceiling price to curb prices but will let petroleum corporations set their own rates for the whole year.

If the proposal is approved, the pump petrol price in the country will probably rise VND17.000 per liter soon.

Source: SGGP

VN bleeding by high price of fuel in Cambodia ... gasoline is smuggled to Cambodia rather than sold to Vietnamese

Carrying petrol to Cambodia

06/12/2007
Oil and petrol ‘bleed’ through border gates

VietNamNet Bridge – A lot of petrol and oil is being illegally exported to Cambodia, as the petrol price there is VND3,000/litre [~$0.19] higher than that in Vietnam.

Cambodians dry up the well

A resident in the southern province of An Giang said the petrol price in Cambodia is $1/litre and the oil price is nearly the same, consequently, Cambodians have been crossing the border to purchase cheaper petrol they can sell at home for a tidy profit.

On So Thuong River in Dong Thap province, many boats can be seen carrying petrol and DO oil to Prey Veng province in Cambodia.

Meanwhile, Vietnamese farmers cannot purchase oil for their pumps because filling stations and privately owned petrol shops only want to sell oil and petrol to Cambodians who will pay more.

A lot of Vietnamese farmers now have a new job: they carry petrol and oil for Cambodians. On average, an ex-farmer may earn VND40-50,000 if they carry 60 litres of petrol or oil. Meanwhile, Vietnamese tobacco smugglers have shifted to the oil trade which is much more lucrative.

Tran Minh Tien, Head of the Ha Tien Border Gate’s Customs Agency, acknowledged that his agency cannot stop the illegal export of petrol.

He said that there are many reasons that encourage illegal petrol exports. While the petrol in Vietnam is cheap thanks to the Government’s subsidization scheme, the price in Cambodia is much higher as it follows global price fluctuations.

There are numerous filling stations along the N1 road in Kien Giang province, but the stations are not open during the day. Nguyen Van Na, a farmer in Tan Khanh commune, complained that he could not buy oil for his harvester, saying that petrol distributors only work in the evening and only sell petrol to Cambodians.

The An Giang Market Control Taskforce said that it has discovered several illegal export rings so far this year, seizing nearly 30,000 litres of oil, while Kien Giang and Dong Thap provinces seized 5,000 litres. However, Mr Tien said this figure is insignificant compared to the amount of illegally exported product, adding that their confiscations are just the ‘tip of the iceberg’.

“Our staff is too small to deal with the strong force of illegal exporters,” Mr Tien said.

The Ministry of Finance’s latest move was to issue the decision to increase A92 petrol retail prices on the domestic market by a maximum of VND 1,700 a litre and oil prices by VND1,500-VND1,600 a litre to VND13,000/litre. Vietnam announced it would float the petrol price back in mid 2007 and the Government subsidy programme is essential to curbing the inflation rate.

Source: Tuoi tre