This follows the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government’s decision to set the retail price of fuel on a weekly basis as part of the automatic pricing mechanism (APM) in view of the downward trend in global oil prices.
Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng said RON97 will now be RM2.22 per litre (down one sen from RM2.23), RON95 will be RM1.92 a litre (down one sen from RM1.93) and diesel will be RM2.05 per litre (up one sen from RM2.04).
“The federal government has kept its promise to implement the weekly retail prices for petrol products to allow users to more quickly benefit from any price changes in line with the decline in global petrol prices,” Lim said in a statement today.
He reiterated that the retail price of petrol products will be maintained at a level not exceeding RM2.20 per litre for RON95 petrol and RM2.18 per litre for diesel through subsidies.
He said this was an initiative by the PH government to assist the bottom-40 (B40) income group, which he claimed was not put to practice by the former Barisan Nasional-led administration.
The APM had determined fuel prices since 1983 before it was replaced by the managed float system in December 2014 during the Najib Razak administration, following the removal of fuel subsidies.
Last month, Lim, who is also the Bagan MP, said fuel prices would be fixed on a weekly basis. This came into effect on Jan 4 and saw RON97 and RON95 dropping by 27 sen each.
Last September, Putrajaya said it had no plans to reduce the price of petrol to RM1.50 per litre unless world crude oil price dropped drastically, following claims that PH had promised to do this.
Under the former government, weekly petrol prices were announced every Wednesday, to be implemented from midnight Thursday.
Now, petrol prices are announced every Friday, to be implemented at midnight on Saturday.