Are the good times over for good?

The shrinking ringgit takes away the cheer from Chinese New Year.

COMMENT

It was not too long ago when you could go out with RM50 in your pocket and return with both a roasted duck and a Hainan-style boiled kampung chicken for your Chinese New Year dinner.

Not any more, especially if you live in the Klang Valley.  The good times are gone forever. Even if you wanted only the duck or just the chicken, you would need more than RM50.

In 2005, after a hike in petrol prices, a survey of Malaysians earning less than RM1,500 a month found that 60% of the respondents felt unable to cope with the rising prices of food and other essentials.

The situation is far worse now. Since that survey, food prices have at least doubled while salaries have remained largely stagnant. Even the humble spinach, popular among the poor, is now RM4.50 a kilo.

Chillies, which are essential in almost any ethnic cuisine of Malaysia, are RM18 a kilo. And let us not talk about prawns, which can be anywhere between RM25 and RM58 a kilo depending on the size.

Year in and year out, consumers are given the same reasons for the price increases—bad weather, poor harvests, short supplies.

On average, grocery and household spending have risen by more than 11% since 2004.  This is set to rise further soon. The Malaysian Institute of Economic Research recently estimated that inflation would climb to 2.5% this year.

Most people have come to accept, albeit grudgingly, the argument that price movements over time are unavoidable, but the speed at which they rise in Malaysia is atrocious, especially when we talk about food and other essentials.

Many believe this is not due to natural economic factors, but to corruption and bad governance, which give rise to monopolies and price-fixing cartels.

Last year, the Economist Intelligence Unit ranked Kuala Lumpur as the 74th most expensive city in the world, up from the 86th position in 2011.

No wonder there is little cheer among either retailers or consumers even though the Chinese will welcome their new year in less than three weeks’ time.

Profit margins are down for the traders as consumers become thriftier. Indeed, for the better part of one decade, the festive season has been becoming noticeably more and more sober every year.

Economists say the average Malaysian earns a RM50 a day—in other words, less than the price of one boiled Hainanese kampung chicken.

That is really chicken feed, considering how expensive it is to prepare a meal for an average family.

Perhaps it is true that BN represents “Barang Naik”.

Stanley Koh is a FMT columnist.