San Francisco Chronicle, 13 Mar 2012
Surging oil prices are starting to pinch the pocketbooks of Asian consumers and could quicken inflation and slow economic activity in a region that has led global growth in recent years.
The jump in crude — the U.S. benchmark is trading near a ten-month high of $107 a barrel from $75 in October — has sent fuel prices higher across Asia, where only Malaysia is a net oil exporter among the major economies. In Singapore, for instance, a liter of 92-octane gasoline at ExxonMobil stations has risen 6 percent this year to 2.15 Singapore dollars a liter ($6.48 a gallon). Full story
