Bahrain Mirror: The Bahraini Oil Minister Mohammed bin Khalifa Al Khalifa said that the National Oil and Gas Authority may revise petrol prices and adjust them if necessary when imposing the value added tax (VAT), as the current prices are not inclusive of the added tax.

He stressed that the Authority is committed to the decision of the Council of Ministers to exclude any project involving an increase in fees that affect citizens until the Joint Committee of the executive and legislative authorities finish preparing a mechanism for restructuring subsidies for beneficiaries starting from the most in need.

This came in the Minister's response to MP Roa Al-Hayeki's question regarding the standards which the National Oil and Gas Authority adopted in its new pricing policy for both excellent and good petrol types.

Concerning the joint Gulf ministerial agreement to determine the new pricing policy for gasoline, the Minister said: "The comparison of local gasoline prices with the prices applied in the GCC countries was one of the standards used for the amendment as well as the main reasons for it." He explained that the price differences increases the phenomenon of resorting to illegal trade in these subsidized products and smuggling them abroad, resulting in an increase in the size of subsidies, and thus an increase in the financial burden on the state treasury.

Arabic Version