The government has no plan to freeze fuel prices despite worries that a prolonged conflict in Libya could push crude oil prices higher, an economics official said yesterday.
Vice Minister of Economic Affairs Lin Sheng-chung (林聖忠) told a legislative committee meeting that tensions in Libya could trigger a new rise in global oil prices, but the state-run oil refiner, CPC Corp Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油), would try to cushion the impact using methods other than a price freeze.
“The CPC is currently using a ‘slow rise’ mechanism, under which it absorbs half of the rise in crude prices,” Lin said.
If world oil prices continued to rise, however, CPC would activate a mechanism under which the company, the government and the public would equally share the burden of the price increase, with the government cutting the excise tax on gasoline by half.
CPC president Lin Maw-wen (林茂文) said the mechanism would be activated when the weighted oil price formula used by the company — 70 percent Dubai crude and 30 percent Brent crude — rose above US$120 per barrel.
Oil prices rose in early morning trading yesterday after the attacks on Libya by a Western coalition over the weekend, but fell back later in the day.
Spot contracts were up 1.35 percent from Friday’s close to US$115.84 per barrel for Brent and down 1.05 percent to US$108.77 per barrel for Dubai Fateh at 11:30 GMT.
The spot price for Dubai crude hit a high this year of US$113.60 per barrel on Feb. 24.
Lin said that because of Taiwan’s limited resources and dependence on energy imports, it had few options to keep prices at the pump in check.
“In the end, we have to adopt a multiple absorbing approach. If that fails, we cannot freeze oil prices,” he said.
Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-shiang (施顏祥) said earlier this month that freezing fuel prices would not be a “responsible” way of coping with the problem, because CPC lost NT$139.7 billion (US$4.7 million) in 2008 when fuel prices were frozen for part of the year to cope with record-high crude oil prices.
The company also lost NT$20 billion and NT$4 billion in 2009 and last year respectively as a result of the policy and it was still operating in the red as of March, Shih said.
Sweeping policy changes under US Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr are having a chilling effect on vaccine makers as anti-vaccine rhetoric has turned into concrete changes in inoculation schedules and recommendations, investors and executives said. The administration of US President Donald Trump has in the past year upended vaccine recommendations, with the country last month ending its longstanding guidance that all children receive inoculations against flu, hepatitis A and other diseases. The unprecedented changes have led to diminished vaccine usage, hurt the investment case for some biotechs, and created a drag that would likely dent revenues and
Global semiconductor stocks advanced yesterday, as comments by Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) at Davos, Switzerland, helped reinforce investor enthusiasm for artificial intelligence (AI). Samsung Electronics Co gained as much as 5 percent to an all-time high, helping drive South Korea’s benchmark KOSPI above 5,000 for the first time. That came after the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose more than 3 percent to a fresh record on Wednesday, with a boost from Nvidia. The gains came amid broad risk-on trade after US President Donald Trump withdrew his threat of tariffs on some European nations over backing for Greenland. Huang further
CULPRITS: Factors that affected the slip included falling global crude oil prices, wait-and-see consumer attitudes due to US tariffs and a different Lunar New Year holiday schedule Taiwan’s retail sales ended a nine-year growth streak last year, slipping 0.2 percent from a year earlier as uncertainty over US tariff policies affected demand for durable goods, data released on Friday by the Ministry of Economic Affairs showed. Last year’s retail sales totaled NT$4.84 trillion (US$153.27 billion), down about NT$9.5 billion, or 0.2 percent, from 2024. Despite the decline, the figure was still the second-highest annual sales total on record. Ministry statistics department deputy head Chen Yu-fang (陳玉芳) said sales of cars, motorcycles and related products, which accounted for 17.4 percent of total retail rales last year, fell NT$68.1 billion, or
HSBC Bank Taiwan Ltd (匯豐台灣商銀) and the Taiwan High Prosecutors Office recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to enhance cooperation on the suspicious transaction analysis mechanism. This landmark agreement makes HSBC the first foreign bank in Taiwan to establish such a partnership with the High Prosecutors Office, underscoring its commitment to active anti-fraud initiatives, financial inclusion, and the “Treating Customers Fairly” principle. Through this deep public-private collaboration, both parties aim to co-create a secure financial ecosystem via early warning detection and precise fraud prevention technologies. At the signing ceremony, HSBC Taiwan CEO and head of banking Adam Chen (陳志堅)
RSS