BEIJING: China's domestic fuel prices are not primed for a price cut yet, but if global crude prices keep falling and reach a trigger point of 4 percent, then China will lower pump prices in a timely manner, the official Xinhua news agency said on Monday. Xinhua cited a pricing official with the National Development & Reform Commission, the country's economic planner, saying this as international oil prices fell more than $2 a barrel on Monday after a U.S. credit rating downgrade. That came after last week's heavy price declines, one of the biggest since the financial crisis, before they recovered partly as upbeat U.S. jobs data and news of an Italian austerity plan offered some hope. "For now the three reference crude prices over the past 22 working days are still higher than the levels when China last raised fuel prices on April 7. The conditions for a price cut are not ripe yet," the official was quoted as saying. Prices of Brent, Dubai and Cinta, to which China bases its fuel prices, have actually risen 2.38 percent in the past 22 working days, according to C1 Energy, an industry publication that closely tracks the reference basket of crude prices.

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