LatinNews Daily - 12 April 2022

* Paraguay’s lower chamber of congress has repealed a bill that authorised temporary fuel subsidies for state-owned oil company Petróleos Paraguayos (Petropar). The bill had enabled Petropar to sell Type III diesel and 93 octane petrol, which are used in public transport and by commercial operators and agricultural producers, at preferential prices. The lower chamber had initially approved the bill, which was introduced on 25 March in response to protests by truckers, taxi drivers and motorcycle delivery drivers over high fuel prices, following its ratification in the senate days earlier. Congress had come under pressure to repeal the bill from groups including the Unión de Gremios de la Producción (UGP), an umbrella organisation that represents Paraguay’s agribusiness sector; the Asociación Rural del Paraguay (ARP), an umbrella group of large agricultural producers; and business lobby the Unión Industrial Paraguaya (UIP), which argued that the subsidies only served to distort the market and were not sustainable in the long run.

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