Who Pays The Highest Petrol? Cheap Petrol Makes You Stupid

[mpvlover]

Published on August 16, 2012



Which country pays the most expensive price for petrol? People in which country feel the most pain when paying for petrol?

Bloomberg recently published its Gas Price Ranking. 60 countries were surveyed, not only on the price for a gallon (3.78-litres) of premium petrol, but also the country's average daily income and the percentage of daily income needed to purchase one gallon of premium petrol.

Norwegians pay the highest for petrol, USD 10.12 for a gallon (3.78 litre) of premium petrol, while Venezuelans pay the least (USD 0.09/gallon).

However it is the Indians that feel the most pain at the pumps. Although premium petrol is sold at USD 5.44/gallon, the average daily income for Indians is only USD 3.97. An average Indian wage earner has to work 1.4 days before he can afford one gallon of premium petrol.

Out of the 60 countries surveyed, Malaysia has the eighth cheapest petrol in the world. Bloomberg's survey puts the average daily income for Malaysians at USD 29, the 46th richest.

Malaysians need to pay 11 percent of their daily wage for a gallon of premium petrol, putting us at 32nd place in terms of petrol price to daily wage share, same rank with Mexico, South Korea and Israel.

Our neighbour Singapore, pays USD 6.08/gallon for premium petrol, the 35th highest in the world. However, Singaporean motorist feel little pain.

The island state has the 10th highest income in the world and Singaporeans only need to fork out 4.4 percent of their daily wage to buy one gallon of premium petrol, putting Singaporeans at 50th place in terms of petrol to wallet share.

Thailand has the 46th most expensive petrol. Thai motorist feel more pain at the pump than either Malaysians or Singaporeans, requiring 28 percent of their daily wage to purchase a gallon of premium petrol, ninth highest in the world.

Meanwhile, Indonesians are even less fortunate. Compared to their average daily income of USD 10, Indonesians use 37 percent of their daily wage to buy premium petrol, the fifth highest in the world. The price for a gallon of premium petrol is USD 3.85, 13th cheapest in the world.

Much have been said about the resource curse, which says that if you have a lot of cheap oil in your country, you are doomed to poverty, illiteracy, corrupt government and civil strife as politicians and the army fight for control over oil wells.

Africa, so rich in diamond, timber and oil but this also means that it is easier enrich oneself by gaining power rather than developing the country. African leaders rather plunder and wage wars for control over the natural resources rather than build schools and hospitals to create an educated and productive population.

Nigeria for example, is Africa's largest oil proder but more than half its population live in poverty.

Last year, Nigeria spent USD 8 billion in fuel subsidy, severely draining the country's finances for structural development. An estimated USD 7 billion was lost through corruption by oil related companies.

Taiwan has many similarities with Malaysia. It has a population of about 23 million, about six million less than Malaysia. Taiwan was formed in 1949, eight years earlier than Malaysia.

But unlike Malaysia, Taiwan's landscape is dominated by rocky mountains and has almost no natural resource to mine. Its government knew the only mining it can do is to mine the minds and culture of its people.

Today, Taiwan is a one of Asia's leading tourist destination, electronics and IT powerhouse and the Taiwanese central bank holds the fourth largest financial reserve in the world.

Recently, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) attempted to quantify this so called 'resource curse' by mapping the correlation between country's PISA scores against the percentage of natural resource contribution to their GDP.

PISA is short Program for International Student Assessment. It is an exam held every two years and is used as a benchmark for students' aptitude in science, mathematics and reading.

In other words, this OECD report shows how smart students in each country are versus how much oil they pump out from the ground.

As you can see, the chart is split into four quadrants, upper left quadrant for countries with very smart students and little reliance on natural resources, while the lower right quadrant is for countries with poor performing students and high reliance on natural resources.

Pinned at the upper right quadrant is Singapore, Korea, Finland, Canada, Germany, Denmark. Pinned right at the border between high PISA score and low PISA score is Turkey and Israel, which pays the second and third highest petrol prices respectively.

Nearly all major oil producing countries score very poorly on PISA, ranking well below the global average of 450 points.

Saudi Arabia is right at the bottom, along with Ghana, Kyrgyzstan, and El Salvador.

Other Middle Eastern countries like United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar and Bahrain only performed slightly better.

Malaysia's PISA score is about 400, well below the global average and similar rank with Costa Rica, Montenegro, Moldova, Kazakhstan and Iran.

According to OECD's report, Malaysia has a 'natural resources rent' of about 13 percent. Meaning Malaysia's GDP is nearly twice as dependent on natural resources compared to the global average of 6 percent.

Countries like Norway and Australia are an exception to the resource curse. Although they are rich in resources, Norway and Australia still rank very highly in their PISA scores, matching Germany and Sweden.

Australia is one of the largest exporters of iron ore and other minerals while Norway is the world's third largest oil exporter.

But rather than spending oil revenue on subsidy, the Norwegian government imposes very high taxes on oil consumption. Oil revenue is channeled into a sovereign fund, the Norwegian Government Pension Fund which is also used to finance building of schools and free education right up to university level.

The Norwegian Government Pension Fund is currently valued at around USD 600 billion and is one of the largest sovereign fund in the world.

If Norway stops pumping oil tomorrow, each Norwegian citizen has a share of USD 120,000 in the fund.

The way the Norwegian government sees it, oil is only temporary and whatever reserve they have, should be used to develop the country rather than to burn it at a cheap price. Hence the high taxes on domestic oil consumption.

Norway's state owned Statoil is ranked No.1 least corrupt company in the world.

Mindful that the presence of oil usually attracts corrupt practices, the Norwegian government is extremely strict about conflict of interest and transparency. Norway's state owned oil company Statoil is ranked No.1 in Transparency International's list of most transparent company.

Australia too has a similar policy, with very heavy emphasis in developing Australian schools and universities.

Singapore is another interesting case study.

The island state has zero crude oil reserve, but Singapore Inc. is the world's third largest oil refining and trading hub.

While its neighbours like Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia are blessed with oil, they lack they necessary know-how to refine them.

Singapore 'mines' the minds of its population to build hi-tech oil refineries and makes a decent profit to complete the high level knowledge intensive task that its neighbours are unable to complete.

Singapore has no natural oil reserve, but managed to make itself as the third largest exporter of refined oil, simply by exploiting its relative knowledge advantage against its less educated regional peers

Malaysia however is starting to catch-up. Petronas' Melaka Refinery Complex is able to process crude oil but it still lacks the scale and capacity of Singapore.

To trade oil, one needs oil tankers. So Singapore developed its marine engineering talent. Today Singapore is the world's largest ship repair centre.

The conclusion is simple, enjoy cheap petrol today, and your children aren't going to get very far ahead in life. Natural resources are only temporary and may actually demotivate a country to progress further.

[VanzMatic]

iki njur maksudte piye yo gawe trit koyo ngene?
(maksudna bikin trit ini buat apa yaa..?)

[vote42ner]

Buat latihan boso londo ki lurah..

[RVR]

Hahahahaha
Maksude, nek ono bbm sing murah yo tuku ae
Ra usah tuku sing larang, lha wong sik ono sing korupsi terus
Hehehe.... Betul ga ya???? Maksud ane bahasa jawanya

[vote42ner]

Mbuh..ora mudeng aku

[Abu2]

dont rich people difficult lhaaaar

[andy1800]

ya gapapa
trus hop trus hop z

[abrof]

bagus lah...biar parlemen nyadar...

[andy1800]

parlemen nyadar?? ...walah! bagai pungguk merindukan bulan

:wkwk

[silverlining]

hehe ada yg blg di sini jalan ga perlu pilot koq (autopilot)

[andy1800]

Sejauh ini kok blm ada yg berbaik hati mau terjemahin ya?

[Andrian]

boso inggrisku pas pasan.

[andy1800]

pas yg ditulis itu, justru yg pas ngerti arti nya? :p