KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 1 — Minister of Domestic Trade and Cost of Living Datuk Armizan Mohd Ali today said that the government aims to retarget diesel subsidies by June this year and will cease diesel from being given in bulk at petrol stations through the Subsidised Diesel Control System 2.0 (SKDS 2.0) Fleet Card pilot project that began today.

The SKDS 2.0 pilot project aims to provide the government with data to analyse the retargeting of subsidies and the effectiveness of the MySubsidi Diesel system as well as the fleet card system before making decisions on the retargeted subsidies.

"The pilot effort is expected to give feedback and analysis to the government in streamlining the mechanism for retargeting diesel subsidies.

"This early step can also test the effectiveness of the MySubsidi Diesel and fleet card systems for oil companies before it is executed throughout the industry,” he said in a statement this afternoon.

He said through this pilot project, the government will study giving out subsidies through the MySubsidi Diesel and fleet card systems with a special rate to the land transport sector for the public sub-sector and goods sub-sector.

He said the fleet card system is meant to replace the analogous skid tank subsidy system to ensure the system is not abused.

Further, he said that the retargeting of subsidies for the goods transportation sector is to prevent drastic hikes in the cost of goods by reducing the cost of transportation.

A total of 3,792 petrol stations and six goods transportation companies are participating in the SKDS 2.0 fleet card pilot project.

The six selected goods companies are Perceptive Logistics Sdn Bhd, Multimodal Freight Sdn Bhd, Mun Chuen Transport Sdn Bhd, Tan Swee Hee Sdn Bhd, Sim Yew Enterprise Sdn Bhd and Rantau Panjang Haulage Sdn Bhd, following the expiration of their skid tank quotas last month.