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The Government must take immediate action to reduce national fuel consumption and stockpile supplies until the Middle East conflict is resolved.<\/p>\n
Dr. Mahendra Reddy, Senior Fellow at the USP Graduate School of Business, warns that inaction could halt economic activity, whereas strategic cuts will only slow it.<\/p>\n
He suggests the state procure and ration up to 60 percent of new in-country fuel stocks to manage potential shortages.<\/p>\n
As escalating tensions threaten global supply chains, Pacific Island Countries face severe risks of high inflation and reduced public services.<\/p>\n
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Dr. Reddy argues that governments must lead by example, suggesting they ground at least 65 percent of their public fleets.<\/p>\n
To further mitigate the crisis, he encourages a three-to-four-day work-from-home policy for non-essential businesses.<\/p>\n
Education should also transition to online or self-directed learning, limiting physical attendance to one day a week to allow bus companies to suspend operations and save fuel.<\/p>\n
Other recommendations include delaying non-essential, high-consumption industries like logging, cutting large-scale diesel generator use by 90 percent, and reducing domestic air travel through higher pricing.
These measures aim to preserve fuel for essential services like hospitals.<\/p>\n
Dr. Reddy maintains that tax cuts or price cushioning should not be considered.<\/p>\n
Instead, he argues the public must face the true cost of fuel to drive the behavioral changes necessary to reduce consumption.<\/p>\n
Collectively, these policies are designed to prevent panic buying and stabilize the economy.<\/p>\n
In the long term, such a crisis serves as a catalyst for the Ministry to accelerate the transition toward renewable energy and enhance national resilience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[file\/photo] The Government must take immediate action to reduce national fuel consumption and stockpile supplies until the Middle…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359800,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[138,219,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-361263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}