When it rain, it pour.
If you on the way for your weekly sundries shopping, take a deep breath. It seems the flour price hikes spread like influenza virus : even food without flood also “infected” with price hike frenzy. The same brand of 500g crackers used to cost RM2.40 (normal sundries shop), now become 450g and cost RM3.00.
Whereas, you will see a big A3 paper stated a “imminent price adjustment” at most of the restaurant. Don’t be surprised, those minimal flour store, such as “mix-riced” (A.K.A. chap-farn) also kiasu to join the price hike bandwagon. A usual RM3.50 dishes sneakily hike to
RM4.00, or even RM5.00 for some shops.
Betters still, those mamak restaurant taking excuses to increase the price of all flour product, regardless the flour used are controlled product, or irrelevant to wheat flour, e.g. Chapatti (ingredients : atta flour).
It is amazing. All this happens before government announce fuel price(e.g. petrol, gas, diesels). It is pretty hard to imagine whether Malaysia will enter hyper inflation stage should the petrol tariff hike(and electricity price hike) turn everything into price hike frenzy. If that happens, a roll of bread that cost RM2.00 in the morning, might go up to RM3.00 in the afternoon (OMGBBQ!).
When there isn’t enough money to buy food on the dining tables, superfluous ER (Economy region) can never save Malaysia.
3 responses so far ↓
1 maria // Nov 8, 2007 at 5:19 am
aii…no choice. what can we do? even eat roti canai also expensive
2 Wuching // Nov 8, 2007 at 7:09 am
looks bleak…here also everything going up
3 Maverick SM // Nov 8, 2007 at 11:06 am
If you are a hawker or a restaurant owner, you will know why. I have a sis-in-law who is a hawker selling nasi lemak. She says her cost had made it impossible for her to sell nasi lemak at the price of $3.50. I believe her. Vege, fruits, flour, fish, meat, everything, absolutely everything is UP, UP & UP! But the CPI and Inflation Index is not…
moo_t : But Doc, beside the raw food price, the biggest culprits are the rental. Our usual “rent-seeking” cultures just refuse to put on policies to check and balance the exponential increase of food store rental. I bet if 1st world country follow Malaysia trends in 50 years ago, a piece of hot dog on street of New York will cost US$100 now.