MS, HSD: ECC approves increase in dealers’ margin

According to Business Recorder, the Economic Coordination Committee of the Cabinet approved a Rs1.34 per litre rise in the margin paid to petroleum dealers on Friday. Once applied, the total dealers' margin on petrol and high-speed diesel will be about Rs10 per litre, up from Rs8.66. The decision led the Pakistan Petroleum Dealers' Association to call off a strike that had been planned from Saturday.

The move follows a Petroleum Division summary that proposed the increase using annual national CPI figures for 2023-24 and 2024-25, with the adjustment bounded between a five percent minimum and a 10 percent maximum. Senator Muhammad Aurangzeb, Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue, chaired the meeting held at the Finance Division. Dealers had pushed back against tying their margins to digitalisation targets, and the matter was sent back to the ECC after a meeting on July 22, 2026 with the petroleum ministry and Ogra.

The summary also suggested a Rs1.22 per litre revision in the margin of oil marketing companies, linked to digitalisation targets set by Ogra. This is not new, since a cabinet decision dated December 23, 2025 had already ratified the earlier ECC approval and made it conditional on digitalisation.