Manado, N Sulawesi (ANTARA News) - The government is considering reviving a presidential instruction on retrenching fuel oils to avoid price hikes, a chief economic minister said.

"The government will revive the presidential instruction No. 2 of 2008 on retrenching fuel oils and water on the ground that since the past three years the instruction was considered successful and prompted the government to retrench fuel oils," Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Hatta Radjasa said here on Sunday.

In addition to implementing a fuel retrenchment program, the government also kept monitoring fuel oil quotas for each province in the country to prevent irresponsible people from abusing subsidized fuels, he said.

To safeguard subsidized fuel quotas for each region, the central government was cooperating with regional governments in supervising the circulation of subsidized fuels and that fuel needs in each province would be safe, he said.

Both the government and the House of Representatives (DPR) were aware of an upward trend in the use of subsidized fuels and therefore, they agreed to raise the quota of subsidized fuels to 40.4 million kiloliters from 38.6 million kiloliters previously.

Hatta said the figure was quite enough to anticipate an upward trend in the use of subsidized fuels or a switch in the use of fuels from pertamax non-subsidized fuels to premium subsidized fuels. (*)

Editor: Kunto Wibisono
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