KUALA LUMPUR: The new pump prices for RON95 and RON97 petrol record a drop of one sen for the period of Jan 12 to Jan 18.
Finance Ministry, in a statement today, said RON95 is now priced at RM1.92/litre while RON97 is RM2.22/litre.
Diesel, however, will go up by one sen to RM2.05/litre.
Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng said the fixing of retail prices for petroleum products for next week followed the managed float system under the Automatic Pricing Mechanism (APM).
Lim, according to Bernama report said the government has given its commitment to set the retail prices of petroleum products on a weekly basis to enable consumers to enjoy any price changes fast in line with the decline of petroleum prices in the world market.
"In order to protect consumers from the effects of significant price increases when world oil prices are rising, retail prices of petroleum products will be maintained at not more than RM2.20 per litre for RON95 petrol and RM2.18 per litre for diesel through subsidies," Lim said.
Lim said the weekly method which lowered the retail price of petroleum products when world oil prices dropped and capped at RM2.20 for RON95 and RM2.18 for diesel when world oil prices go up, was a new initiative of the Pakatan Harapan government to protect the interests of the B40 (lower income) group.
"The oil price thresholds will be cancelled when oil subsidies are targeted mid-year," he said.
The first week (Jan 5-11) saw retail prices for RON97 petrol lowered to RM2.23 per litre, RON95 to RM1.93 per litre, while the price of diesel was also reduced to RM2.04 per litre.
For the following weeks, the retail prices will be re-adjusted according to the managed float method under the APM formula.