October 03, 2007	Wednesday	Ramazan 20, 1428

ISLAMABAD, Oct 2: The government on Tuesday decided to avoid any increase in the base price of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) for the month of October.

The decision was reached in a meeting of LPG Distributors Association of Pakistan led by its chairman Abdul Hadi Khan with Secretary Petroleum Farrukh Qayyum.

Mr. Khan told Dawn after the meeting that the government had suspended the implementation of the new CP rates of international market for the month of October, which was about to be announced on Wednesday.

He said that the decision was taken to ensure stability in the prices of liquefied petroleum gas in the domestic market.

He said that the CP rate of LPG during the month of September was $574, which after a record increase of $83.5 reached $657.50 in October.

In case of implementation of these new CP rates the LPG prices would increase by Rs6,000 per ton and price of 11.8 kilogram cylinder would increase by Rs71 or Rs6 per kg.

It would render the LPG out of purchasing power of the consumers and also hit the business, he added.

He said at present LPG was available at Rs57,500 per ton in the international market. He demanded that the government should exempt the LPG import from general sales tax (GST) and income tax, which would reduce prices by Rs9, 500 per ton thus stabilising the prices in the domestic market and reducing per kg prices by Rs7 to 9.