China will impose a fuel tax at the "appropriate” time, an official with the Ministry of Finance (MOF) reiterated during an online interview, the China Business News reported Wednesday.

Zeng Xiao’an, a deputy director with the Finance Ministry, said that the State Council decided in 2001 upon a two-step scheme for the introduction of fuel tax in light of concerns centering on domestic oil market stability and alleviating fiscal burden of companies and individuals.

In light of the scheme, the government first introduced a vehicle purchase tax to replace surcharges for purchasing motor vehicles as of Jan 1, 2001. In the future, the government will choose the optimal time to launch a fuel tax to replace current road maintenance fees.

According to Zeng, the fuel tax launch requires several essential conditions, such as basically stable oil prices and a reasonable pricing mechanism for oil products.

For more details, please read the full story in Chinese

(http://www.china-cbn.com/s/n/000002/20080709/020000083159.shtml).

(China.org.cn by Yan Pei, July 9, 2008)