Bangladesh's government said on Saturday it had no immediate plans to raise domestic fuel prices as suggested by the Asian Development Bank, one of the poor South Asian country's main development partners.
The ADB said in its latest quarterly report on Bangladesh's economy that the administered prices of petroleum products combined with rising world crude prices had already generated substantial fiscal costs to government. "Underpricing of energy products poses considerable risk in macroeconomic management," it said in the report published last week.
In the current fiscal year ending in June, 2008 the government has assumed $1.1 billion in liabilities of the sole importer and distributor of oil, the state-run Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation.
Officials have said that because of high world prices the company will have to spend 35 percent more on oil imports than last year. But a top official in the interim army-backed government in charge of energy policy ruled out a price rise in the near term.
"We will not raise oil prices until the end of boro season in April," said M. Tamim responsible for the ministry of power, energy and mineral resources in the interim army-backed government. Boro is a major variety of rice and a main food staple for the nation of more than 140 million people. In April 2007, the government raised prices for diesel and kerosene by about 21 percent, but the ADB said it was not enough.