MIFCO: Fishermen will continue to receive diesel at old rate

Maldives Industrial Fisheries Company (MIFCO) has revised its decision to increase the price of fuel, announcing on Tuesday that fishermen will continue to receive diesel at the old rate.

On Monday, the State Trading Organization (STO) made the decision to implement a sharp hike in the price of fuel sold to businesses. This prompted MIFCO to announce a rise in price of diesel sold from its fish collection centers and ships to MVR 27.24 per liter for fishing boats and MVR 28.54 per liter for others.

But a couple of hours later, the STO announced that public transport service providers, petrol sheds in the atolls that rely on fuel purchases from the organization, as well as the state’s ‘Fahi Hakatha’ initiative for fishermen will be exempt from the price hike.

In a statement on Tuesday, MIFCO noted that STO has revised its earlier decision, and decided to provide diesel at a subsidized rate to support the ‘Fahi Hakatha’ initiative for fishermen.

MIFCO announced that it has therefore decided to provide diesel to fishing boats at the previous rate announced on March 5 – MVR 16.54 per liter, and a lower MVR 16.04 per liter for boats selling over three tons of fish.

The company will be selling diesel to other parties at the rate of MVR 17.54 per liter.

The sharp rise in fuel prices by STO comes amid global shocks to oil prices as the US and Israel’s war on Iran continues.