Finance Minister Ishaq Dar announced on Saturday that the price of petrol and diesel will remain unchanged heading into 2023.

In a televised address, the finance minister said the price of kerosene oil and light diesel will also remain the same.

The price of diesel will remain at the existing price of Rs227.80 per litre, petrol at Rs214.80 per litre, kerosene oil at Rs171.83 per litre and light diesel oil at Rs169.00 per litre, he added.

The finance minister said that following a rise in the prices of petroleum products in the international market, the Oil and Regulatory Gas Authority (Ogra) had recommended a slight upward revision in the tariff for kerosene and light diesel oil.

The regulatory authority’s recommendation was not passed by the government on Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s directives, Dar added.

“The decision was taken after considering that the weather is cold and the poorest people use light diesel oil for tubewells while kerosene is also used by people earning the lowest incomes,” he said.

“According to the prime minister’s directives, it has been decided that the government will absorb the levy on these two products and reduce the collected amount to maintain these prices.”

He also later said that the decision to keep prices unchanged was taken to “provide relief to the common man, despite increase in the prices of these products in the international markets!”.

On December 15, the government cut the price of petrol by Rs10 and diesel by Rs7.5.

The price of kerosene oil was slashed by Rs10 on Nov 30 while the price of light diesel oil was reduced by Rs7.5 per litre.