Standard gasoline and ACPM - First year of the measure of prices liberation

At the beginning of 1999, amid a lingering period of low prices of petroleum and relative stability of exchange market, due at the high interest rate levels and it offers of foreign currencies, the national government through the of Mines and Energy Ministry, decided to start the prices liberation for the standard gasoline and ACPM. In that moment, the economic politics of the state pointed to the maintenance of the flow of revenues of the nation, the creation of incentives for the investment of the national and international private capital, the elimination of subsidies of the public sector, the best assignment in the public expense, the construction of an environment competitive and the protection of the real wage of the Colombians. Specifically of liberation measure of the internal prices of standard gasoline and ACPM modified two components of prices structure, entrance to the producer (EP) and margin retailer; to rationalize the finances of Ecopetrol, to achieve a better assignment of the public resources with the elimination from an outline of subsidies to high strata, to look for the specialization of the state company in the exploration, to eliminate the effect that the expectations of increment of prices of hydrocarbons generated on the prices to the consumer index (PCI), to foment the free competition along the production chain and distribution and to improve the quality and covering of the service, by means of the incentive to the investments