According to CNN Chile, the Minister of Finance (Ministro de Hacienda), Jorge Quiroz, said on Wednesday that softening fuel price increases in recent weeks has cost the Treasury about $300,000 million. He made the remarks while justifying the fifth consecutive increase in gasoline and diesel prices.
"The first thing is to tell the public that we are making a very big effort so that these increases are as gradual as possible within what public finances allow us," the minister said.
Quiroz said the next increase will be limited to the minimum allowed by law. According to the minister, it will be about $40 per liter for gasoline and $90 for diesel. To give you an idea, if you fill a 40-liter tank with gasoline, you would pay about $1,600 more than before this increase.
The minister added that the State will keep subsidizing fuel after these increases. "Today the Government of Chile is subsidizing diesel by around $200 pesos per liter," he said. In other words, the Treasury covers part of the real price of diesel, the fuel used by trucks and much of freight transport.
Truckers' associations called the situation unsustainable. Diesel has seen several increases in a row, and this time it is rising more than twice as much as gasoline. The source does not detail what measures the truckers are demanding.
Quiroz attributed the sustained increase to external factors: the war in the Middle East, the conflict in Russia and the destruction of refineries in various parts of the world. Chile imports most of the oil it consumes, so those shocks go straight to the price at the pump.
The minister linked the Treasury's ability to cushion the blow to the state of the public accounts. "We can do it today, since our accounts are in fairly good order. We have sorted out many issues. We have managed to raise revenue," he said.
Quiroz also said the Government is spending less on fraudulent medical leave, which he said opened up room that did not exist in March of this year.
The Empresa Nacional del Petróleo (Enap), the state-owned oil company that reports wholesale fuel prices every week, will announce the new increases on Wednesday afternoon.
