LAHORE: Finance Minister Ishaq Dar on Sunday announced keeping the prices of petroleum products unchanged for the next 15 days.

“We have decided to maintain the existing prices of petroleum products from Jan 16 to 31,” Mr Dar said as he announced the fortnightly revision of prices.

He said the price of petrol, diesel and kerosene will remain at Rs214.80, Rs227.80 and Rs171.83 per litre, respectively.

“The price of light diesel is currently Rs169 per litre which will also remain the same till January 31,” he added.

This is the second time in a row that the prices have been kept the same. Earlier on Dec 31, the finance minister had made a similar statement, announcing no changes in the prices.

The government has not increased the prices of petroleum products in almost four months. The last time the prices went up was on Sept 21. Even then, the price of diesel remained unchanged.

The announcement has come at a time when the economic crisis is worsening, plagued by the government’s weak fiscal position. As the government’s revenue collection fell short of its target last month, there were expectations that the prices would be increased.

According to news reports, the International Monetary Fund has been pushing for more stringent measures to fill the tax shortfall, such as an increase in petroleum development levy and the imposition of a general sales tax.

Amid the economic slowdown, the consumption of oil also witnessed a year-on-year drop of 11 per cent in December and 19pc in 1HFY23 as demand for diesel, petrol and furnace oil remained depressed. In December 2022, oil sales dipped to 1.34 million tonnes from 1.507m tonnes in the same month last year. It was the lowest monthly sales number since Feb-April 2020 when the lockdown was imposed to control the spread of coronavirus.

Published in Dawn, January 16th, 2023