Brazil truckers maintain nationwide protest for 4th day
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SAO PAULO, May 24 (Reuters) - Brazilian truckers protesting high diesel prices for a fourth day on Thursday said they would maintain road blockades until measures to reduce fuel taxes are enshrined in the official gazette.
With protests crippling highways nationwide, Brazil's lower house of Congress voted on Wednesday to eliminate certain taxes on diesel. The Senate has yet to vote on tax cuts truckers say are needed before they will end protests that threaten grains exports, industrial output and fuel supply at airports and gasoline stations.
State-run oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA on Wednesday announced a temporary 10 percent diesel price cut at the refinery but the head of a truckers group said that step was insufficient.
José da Fonseca Lopes, head of the group known as ABCAM, said in an interview with a local radio station that the Petrobras price cut was ineffective because it would only last 15 days, after which the company would resume setting domestic prices based on international oil prices.
Brazil's lower house of Congress approved on Wednesday the main text of a bill eliminating the CIDE tax on diesel and cutting the PIS/Cofins tax on the fuel to zero. The measure has yet to pass the Senate..
Lopes said the protests would continue until the PIS/Cofins reduction, which impacts fuel prices more significantly than the CIDE, is officially published. Lopes noted it would take several days for truckers to normalize cargo deliveries in the country when demonstrations come to an end.
"It will take a week or more to normalize deliveries. That is why the Petrobras' attitude does not help us. When we return to work at full steam, the 15 days will have passed," Lopes said. (Reporting by Marcelo Teixeira, Alberto Alerigi and Flavia Bohone Writing by Ana Mano Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and David Gregorio)
