Americans Shouldn't Gripe About Gas By DIRK BEVERIDGE, AP Business Writer

HONG KONG (AP) -- Americans who worry about paying as much as $1.80 per gallon for gasoline are lucky they don't fill up in Hong Kong.

Or Japan, or Britain, or France -- just about any of the world's wealthy economies -- where such prices would seem like an unbelievable bargain.

Unleaded fuel costs around $5.40 per gallon in Hong Kong, and there is simply no concept here of a divine right to $1-a-gallon a gas that many Americans cling to.

American motorists are paying about $1.50 per gallon, an all-time high that has prompted U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson to lobby OPEC to pump more oil and bring the price down. Richardson predicted recently that gasoline could hit $1.80 when summer vacation time rolls around, although he's hoping to avoid that.

Such grumbling sounds like nonsense to drivers in Hong Kong.

''I'd like to pay what the Americans are paying, even a little more, but not what they charge here,'' said Raymond Yip, a 28-year-old restaurant manager who spends about $250 per month to keep his Mercedes 180 fueled up.

''It's totally unreasonable, but we're at their mercy,'' Yip said.

People in many nations pay far more for gasoline because governments impose steep taxes that keep the prices high and discourage wasteful use of automobiles.

Fuel prices have risen quickly in the past year as crude oil prices soared amid a global production cutback, but in nations where the price at the pump is propped up by big taxes, people don't feel the pinch quite as sharply as Americans.

For example, as the price of crude oil virtually tripled to about $34 a barrel, French retail gasoline prices rose by about 30 percent to the equivalent of $4.50 per gallon.

Ask the Japanese, who pay about $3.46 per gallon, about the problem of high gasoline prices in America and you'll likely get some incredulous stares.

''I'm jealous,'' said Yoichiro Sunagawa, 31, a corporate employee in Tokyo. ''If gas were that cheap, I might buy a car.''

In Takely, England, just northeast of London, BMW salesman Nigel Morris said that out of the $56 he just paid for his ''petrol,'' well more than half was going to Her Majesty's tax collectors.

The English pay about $5 per gallon, regardless of whether they're driving a beat-up old Ford or sitting back in style as the chauffeur steers the Rolls-Royce down the motorway.

''It's just another way of raising money for the government and we are getting a raw deal,'' Morris said. ''I think the Americans are quite lucky. My family lives there and I keep reminding them that their cost of living is so much lower.''

Judy Gardiner, an English mother who drives a Nissan Prairie, couldn't understand the American concerns over gasoline that still costs well less than $2 per gallon.

''Are you kidding me?'' Gardiner asked. ''The Americans have all the luck. We are being ripped off.''

In Tokyo, company worker Naohiro Yagawa expressed some sympathy about the higher price, and its effect on the Americans and their auto culture.

''Americans depend more on their cars, so I can understand why it's a problem,'' Yagawa said.

It isn't just rich countries who face substantially higher prices. In Mexico, the state oil monopoly has a lock on all gas stations in the country, which all charge the same high price, about $2.04 a gallon for regular.

Even though rising prices aren't felt as strongly in countries that already charge a lot, there is still an impact.

In France, for instance, increases were enough to prompt a crippling truckers strike in January.

In Italy, where gas now goes for a record $4.28 a gallon, officials are afraid that a new bout of inflation will crimp recent economic gains.

http://www.newsday.com/ap/business/ap976.htm

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), March 09, 2000