CARACAS, (Reuters) – Venezuela will raise gasoline prices, the country’s oil minister told reporters yesterday, repeating a government promise to increase the world’s lowest fuel prices for the first time in two decades.
Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez did not give a timeline for the increase, but said it would not be comparable to international prices.
According to government figures, cheap fuel costs the gasoline subsidiary of state-run oil company PDVSA $12.5 billion in losses annually.
Efforts to raise the price of fuel in Venezuela, which has the highest inflation in the Americas, reaching 60.9 percent year-on-year in May, have been delayed several times.
“We will not put on the international price because that’s not the idea, but it will be a price which is reasonable,” said Ramirez, who was attending a celebration of the centenary of the discovery of oil in the Caribbean country.
