By Lee Hyo-sik
Staff Reporter

Seoul is the eighth most expensive place in the world for drivers to fill up their tanks as the city's gasoline price averages $7.33 per gallon (about 4 liters), higher than Tokyo's $6.3 and Singapore's $6.13.

Over half of the money South Korean drivers pay for gasoline ends up in government coffers as various taxes, including transporation and special excise taxes.

The Associates for International Research, a Massachusetts relocation consulting firm that tracks the cost of living in dozens of countries, said recently that drivers in Oslo, the capital of Norway, pay the highest retail price for a gallon of gasoline in the world at $9.85, followed by $9.43 in Paris and $9.24 in Copenhagen.

But in oil-rich Venezuela, drivers pay only 12 cents a gallon, the lowest gasoline price in the world. Gas is cheaper than milk in the South American nation, which spends an estimated $11 billion subsidizing gasoline per year.

The institue said oil producing countries usually subsidize fuel to share the wealth and keep citzens happy. Drivers pay less than 50 cents a gallon when they fill up in Saudi Arabia and Iran.

It also said retail gas prices in each nation are inflenced by a number of factors, including the cost of refining, distribution and marketing. But the biggest single variable is government policy as some countries tax gasoline heavily, while others subsidize it to make it cheap.

According to the Ministry of Strategy and Finance, various local and national taxes account for about 57.3 percent of retail gasoline price here, substantially higher than the United States' 19 percent.

But most European drivers pay more taxes per gallon of gasoline than Korean drivers. The tax to gasoline price ratio currently stands at 81.5 percent in Britain.

With Dubai Crude, South Korea's benchmark, exceeding $140 per barrel, the Korean government last week announced a number of energy saving measures. Among them, civil servants will be required to use their vehicles every other day from Tuesday.

The measure, formulated as a first-stage crisis management plan late last month, was originally to have been put into action if Dubai Crude oil reaches $150 per barrel.

The ``even-odd system'' will be based on the last number of license plates, while other actions, including controlled use of air-conditioning in offices, could be implemented sooner.

Some additional changes in the use of official vehicles will also take place to reduce the use of public officials' vehicles by 30 percent and replace about half of official vehicles with more energy-efficient compacts or hybrids by 2012.

The government also urged the private sector to participate, recommending citizens to voluntarily cut back on driving, and store owners to turn off neon advertising signs earlier.

leehs@koreatimes.co.kr