TNAG-1449-FCO40-1953-Minutes-and-Hansards-of-the-Legislative-Council-of-Hong-Kong-1986 — Page 313

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Supplementary to Question No. 9

in LegCo Meeting on 12.3.86

Mrs. Fan: Sir, I thank the Financial Secretary for sharing my concern,

but is the Government aware that all motorists in Hong Kong have no

alternative but to obtain fuel from oil suppliers if they wish to

move their cars. As there is no other alternative and therefore

this is not, in a stricter sense, a free market. And in addition

all the oil suppliers in Hong Kong charge the same price considered

to be unseemingly high by many consumers and consumers are victims

of this monopoly. Under such circumstances, does the Government

still feel that it is inappropriate to do something about this

situation which is affecting many citizens of Hong Kong?

There are

Financial Secretary: Sir, I am indeed, as a private citizen, painfully

aware that my car only moves with petrol or diesel oil.

in fact seven oil importing companies in Hong Kong. The Shell, Esso,

Caltax, Mobil, Hong Kong Oil, China Resources and British Petroleum.

They do indeed compete with each other. We tend to focus on petrol

because everybody who is a car owner knows all about it.

But you

could argue very easily that the more important commodities are oil

fuel and diesel where there certainly is much more competition than

there is on petrol. It is also not generally known in fact 23 per cent

of our oil comes from China so we don't depend only on Singapore

which in turn depends very largely on the Arabian Gulf. I am quite

sure myself there is competition. The American companies, for instance,

are bound by very rigid American anti-trust law and if there is any

suggestion that they were colluding in advance, they would be open

to very severe American penalties.