SHAH ALAM: Petrol dealers say they might have no choice but to resort to severe cost-cutting measures to stay afloat if the government persists with its weekly fuel price float, which goes into effect on Jan 1. Khairul Annuar explained that PDAM was against the weekly pricing mechanism, as dealers were totally exposed to the risks of oil price fluctuations. "The number of petrol dealers who surrendered their licences since 2014 has been rising exponentially since 2014, when they started implementing the monthly and weekly price floats. "About 50 petrol dealers quit in 2017, and those are just the ones we know, some just sell or transfer their business to others, they can't survive," Lee said. "It might be better to set up a fund to stabilise the country's oil prices, rather than trying to change oil prices weekly, because hawkers and other businesses are not reducing their prices even when oil prices go down each week," Wu said.

Source: The Star December 29, 2018 11:03 UTC