Munteanu: "Drivers from neighboring countries come to us for cheaper fuel"
“According to my experience, when I worked as director of foreign exchange operations at the National Bank, any restrictions lead to arbitrage operations, in other words – to speculation. And this is bad, because consumers, economic agents and the state suffer, while only speculators, who gain unjustified profits, win. We live in a market economy. A producer, whether agricultural or industrial, makes a lot of efforts to earn his money, while it is very easy for a speculator (when the difference between two gas stations is 10-15% and they are 20 km away from each other) to make speculative actions,” Munteanu said at the Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, March 11.
The authorities are monitoring fuel prices. According to them, the recent trends are generally positive – “this is a global process”: on March 9, a barrel cost 119 dollars, today it is 87-88 dollars, with extremely high volatility.
“From the good news: we have enough reserves – we have enough gasoline for 23 days, diesel for a little less, that is, for about two weeks. Through the Giurgiulesti port, we receive additional supplies and we are in contact with our friends from Romania,” the prime minister said.
He urged not to create panic and “not to allow speculative actions that take place not only at gas stations, but also in the public sphere”.
Prime Minister also said that the government would not introduce an emergency regime in the energy sector and would keep the regime of high readiness for the time being: “At present, we believe that there is no need to move to a higher level of urgency – we have enough resources and opportunities to keep the situation under control. You have seen that there are more optimistic statements, including from the American president, who said that the war will soon end. On the other hand, there is information that Iran has carried out the most intense attack since the war began.”
