SANTO DOMINGO.- The Industry and Commerce minister yesterday said despite  the consecutive rises in the price of petroleum this week, "the Government will wait for this speculation bubble to stabilize so as not to penalize the Dominican people."

Melanio Paredes said because of petroleum’s high prices in the last few days, which between Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, the days of reference to set the internal amounts, fuels rose almost US$8, the Government is clear: "Dominican Republic cannot be guided by the market’s mistaken signals. A month ago we didn’t go by this bubble and we didn’t raise fuel prices that Friday."

"I just spoke with the President and we’ll wait for the international fuels market to normalize. We will not penalize the Dominican population for this speculation bubble that exists today with petroleum. We will try to prevent that this doesn’t affect the country’s fuels market," he said.

The official said the weekly changes in hydrocarbons’ prices creates distortions "and I believe the same thing is happening at this time,” adding that the prices of diesel or gasoline couldn’t be raised RD$15 or RD$17 now, since “the Dominican economy doesn’t resist it, nor any other economy."