Recently, the community was informed that the price of gasoline will see another drastic increase. Today, the price of gasoline has officially increased by 15,3 cents per liter. This has been the result of the worldwide increase of crude oil. Of course, this will have its consequences and will amongst others, affect all prices worldwide. In an interview with Herrick Henriquez, director of ATIA, he said that Aruba is an island that imports everything, thus we depend on the price of crude oil for everything.
According to Henriquez, in the past, a ‘hedging’ was attempted with WEB and out of this situation, the hedging of petroleum barrels was important as it would have stabilized the price. In turn, this will result in a ripple effect in the market. For commerce, Henriquez said that commerce is in its recovery phase and that margins are already very low and will continue to decrease in a competitive market such as this. Thus, absorption of these prices in such a position is becoming increasingly difficult.
Henriquez mentioned that he had read an article about the government stating that they will gradually increase their own prices as worldwide prices go up. Nevertheless, this development has to be watched closely as the government already has a major deficit and lacks the room to work with prices and absorb costs as a country. “At the end of the day, the community and commerce will feel this because the increase does not come from commerce itself, but from worldwide increase of prices.
