The Department of Domestic Market Management and Development has sent an urgent document to the Departments of Industry and Trade of provinces and cities, especially those with border areas, requesting them to strengthen management, inspection, and handling of violations.
The ministry's official document was issued amidst concerns about potential supply disruptions and fire safety hazards from illegal fuel collection and transportation across the border, as reported by several media outlets.
Accordingly, the Ministry of Industry and Trade stated that military conflicts in the Middle East continue to evolve in a complex manner, impacting the global energy supply chain. The Government and the Ministry of Industry and Trade have issued decisive directives to ensure national energy security.
Therefore, in implementing Directive No. 06 of the Minister of Industry and Trade on strengthening measures to ensure energy security, the management agency has coordinated with localities to synchronously implement many solutions to manage the petroleum market, from forecasting supply and demand, regulating the supply of goods to strengthening inspection and supervision of business activities.
However, recently, some information has indicated that individuals and small traders in border areas, especially in Lao Bao ( Quang Tri ), are showing signs of collecting gasoline and diesel fuel from retail stores.
According to this information, the suspects modified transport vehicles, adding fuel tanks to smuggle gasoline and diesel into neighboring countries for sale, in order to profit from price differences.
Authorities believe that the aforementioned practices, if not promptly controlled, risk causing a loss of domestic supply and also pose potential fire and explosion hazards during transportation and storage.
Therefore, the Ministry of Industry and Trade requests that relevant authorities take the lead and coordinate closely with the police, customs, and border guards to monitor operations at retail gasoline stations.
In addition, on land and water routes, promptly detect and strictly handle acts of hoarding or selling large quantities to individuals suspected of collecting and smuggling goods.
In addition, localities need to establish hotlines to receive public feedback on illegal fuel storage points, and at the same time, strengthen efforts to encourage fuel businesses to sign commitments not to abet smuggling and commercial fraud.
The Ministry of Industry and Trade believes that the synchronized implementation of the above solutions is expected to contribute to tightly controlling the petroleum market in border areas, ensuring domestic supply, and maintaining market stability amidst many fluctuations.
