Minister for Information and Broadcasting Chaudhry Fawad Hussain said on Saturday that for reducing burden of increasing international petroleum prices, the government of Pakistan has been reducing tax rate on fuel. In a statement, the minister said that in January this year International Brent Crude Prices was $ 51 per barrel whereas in July it has touched $ 75 mark which was increase of 47 per cent. He said that in January Petrol Price in Pakistan was Rs 106 per litre and now in July it is being sold at Rs 118 per litre which is only 11.3 per cent increase.Fawad Hussain said if petroleum levy was kept at Dec 2020 level of Rs 30, which was the maximum the government can charge, the additional collection would have been approx Rs 200 billion. He said that petroleum levy has been slowly reduced to Rs 0 during last 7 months. He said for the month of July the foregone approximate Rs 27 billion tax would have been collected, if the government had kept sales tax at Rs 17 per cent and levy at Rs 15 as per IMF Programme (Pre-COVID level).He said that average tax on per litre petrol during last 6 months of PML-N government was Rs 22.5 compared to only Rs 11.5 currently.