KUALA LUMPUR: As food prices rise, freelance cameraman Shunmugam Karuppannan is one of many Malaysians feeling the pinch.
These days, the 50-year-old thinks twice about taking his family to a restaurant, even if they ate out only once a month previously.
The ringgit has fallen, and as Malaysia imports around 60 per cent of its food, this has translated into imported inflation, to the extent that it has affected his nine-year-old daughter at school.
“Every day I’d give her RM2. And she didn’t tell me anything about (prices being) hiked up in the canteen,” he recounted.
After a few days of her skipping meals, he “got to know that the price, RM2, of mee hoon or whatever … had gone to RM3”.
The impact of the depreciating ringgit extends across income brackets. Elliza Abdul Rahim, 54, who belongs to the M40 group, or the middle 40 per cent of income earners, has also become more cost-conscious.
