RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Through the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, the Government of Paraguay will present this week a bill aimed at regulating the price of fuels, the media reported today.
The objective is to establish a mechanism to maintain the price of this item, whose constant rise in the last months has generated protests among consumers.
According to the Vice-Minister of Commerce and Services, Pedro Mancuello, the measure consists of a peak in the price of fuels, it will not have to be transferred directly to the consumers, but gradual increases in the cost per week can be made.
In this context, Mancuello specified that Petróleos Paraguayos would implement this regulation. However, it will be applied voluntarily because it is a free market, quoted the IP agency.
“The idea is to continue talking with the private sector so that they do not raise the price yet; we can hold out until we have a legal instrument that allows us to have a more accessible fuel and we do not have to transfer the price increase directly to the consumer,” said the official.
On the other hand, the country’s business sector is anticipating a new increase in fuel prices for this weekend, which consumers qualify as “another blow to their pockets when just a few days ago they suffered the previous increase.”
This sustained increase is one of the protest’s demands initiated today by the truck drivers affiliated with the Union of Freight Transport Workers. They said that the mobilization could have a national scope this week if there is no adequate response from the government.
According to the newspaper Última Hora, Paraguay ranks fifth in the ranking of South American countries with the most expensive diesel and third in gasoline prices in Mercosur.