HANOI, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam will apply higher environmental protection taxes on oil and petroleum products from Jan. 1, 2019 to increase tax collection by over 15,700 billion Vietnamese dong (682.6 million U.S. dollars) a year.

According to the latest resolution by the Standing Committee of the National Assembly, Vietnam's top legislature, environmental protection taxes will advance by 1,000 Vietnamese dong (over 4 U.S. cents) per liter of petroleum products to 4,000 Vietnamese dong, by 500 Vietnamese dong per liter of diesel oil to 2,000 Vietnamese dong, and by 1,100 Vietnamese dong per liter of other oil products to 2,000 Vietnamese dong.

The tax hike is forecast to push transportation cost up by only 0.83 percent in three months since coming into force and hardly have impacts on other products and services, according to the National Assembly's Committee on Finance and Budget on Friday.

Between January and August, Vietnam imported 8.6 million tons of various kinds of oil and petroleum products totaling 5.7 billion U.S. dollars, up 26.4 percent on-year, said the General Statistics Office.