Meeting between Brazil's govt, airlines, Petrobras called off

BRASILIA (Reuters) -A meeting that was scheduled to happen between Brazil's government, local airlines and state-run oil firm Petrobras on Thursday has been canceled, Mines and Energy Minister Alexandre Silveira said.

The meeting was part of efforts by the Brazilian government to make air travel more affordable and would involve Petrobras as the company sells jet fuel, whose prices carriers say are excessively high in Brazil.

This Thursday Petrobras lowered the jet fuel prices to distributors by an average of 0.4%, as part of a routine tweak based on factors including oil prices and exchange rates.

The meeting was to be held a week after Brazilian airline Gol filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States.

Since last year Petrobras has already lowered prices by around 41%, the company's Chief Executive Jean Paul Prates told local newspaper Estado de Sao Paulo on Wednesday.

According to the CEO, the firm cannot artificially lower prices with "the stroke of a pen", as doing so would be tantamount to Petrobras creating a subsidy for the sector.

(Reporting by Lisandra Paraguassu, and Fabio Teixeira; Editing by Steven Grattan and Chizu Nomiyama)

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