LISTED oil company Petron Corp. said it will focus on increasing sales volume following its perfomancee in the first quarter (Q1) and the previous year.
“We are now focused on increasing our sales volume and improve our financial performance,” Petron General-Manager Lubin B. Nepomuceno said during the company’s annual stockholder’s meeting on Tuesday.
“We’re taking advantage of the ongoing economic recovery that is why you will notice the huge improvement in our sales volume last year,” he added.
For the first quarter, Petron posted a 16% increase in its net income to P3.93 billion driven by the growth in its local and Malaysian operations.
Consolidated revenues went up by 21% to P227.64 billion brought by the strong volume growth.
Petron Chief Executive Officer Ramon S. Ang cited excise tax, value-added tax (VAT), and the absence of subsidies as reasons for high gasoline and electricity prices in the country compared to neighboring nations.
“For example, the price of gasoline is P60 per liter in the Philippines. In Malaysia, it’s only P20 per liter… because the government of Malaysia do not impose excise tax and VAT of 12%,” he said in mixed English and Filipino.
Republic Act. No. 10963 or the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion Law raised excise tax on fuel in three trances from 2018 to 2020.
The tax rates are currently at P10 per liter for gasoline, P6 per liter for diesel, P5 per liter for kerosene, and P3 per liter for LPG.
“The electricity rate in the Philippines is usually three times compared to our regional countries because our neighboring countries also put in subsidy,” Mr. Ang said.
He said that the Philippines is “market forced” unlike other neighboring countries which are “heavily subsidized.”
“But I think our neighboring countries will not be able to sustain that in the long term,” he said. — Sheldeen Joy Talavera
