In view of the soaring gas price (with the USA average $4 a gallon as of today) and its impact on the Memorial day travel, it is interesting that people are facing much harder times in Europe, where the fuel price in many countries has already exceeded $8 a gallon!

A major reason for this disparity is that many European countries put a much higher fuel tax burden on the motorists, including the so-called “value-added tax” (or VAT). For example, while federal and state taxes make up only about 11% of the gas price in USA, in France and UK this tax accounts for about 70%.

I decided to look up the current gas prices in some of the major countries around the world, and here is the list.

Country	Price/Gal (in US$)	Date reported
Australia	$5.60	2008-05-27
Belgium	$8.44	2008-05-12
Canada	$5.19	2008-05-24
Denmark	$9.31	2008-05-28
Finland	$8.90	2008-05-28
France	$8.06	2008-05-06
Germany	$8.74	2008-05-28
Hong Kong	$7.56	2008-04-12
Iran	$0.42	2007-05-05
Israel	$7.23	2008-05-01
Italy	$8.78	2008-05-18
Japan	$5.83	2008-05-12
Mexico	$2.35	2007-05-05
Netherlands	$9.35	2008-05-25
Norway	$10.03	2008-05-24
Portugal	$8.90	2008-05-28
Russia	$3.79	2008-05-07
Saudi Arabia	$0.45	2007-05-16
Singapore	$6.06	2008-05-22
Spain	$7.34	2008-05-27
Sweden	$8.71	2008-05-22
Turkey	$10.14	2008-04-22
UK	$8.56	2008-05-22
USA	$3.93	2008-05-25
Venezuela	$0.19	2008-01-12

After seeing some of the entries in this list, I feel lucky to be driving in America!

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