{"id":5961,"date":"2011-05-20T12:27:28","date_gmt":"2011-05-20T04:27:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/buletinonline.net\/v7\/index.php\/2011\/05\/malaysias-food-price-increase-in-the-first-four-months-of-2011\/"},"modified":"2011-05-20T12:27:28","modified_gmt":"2011-05-20T04:27:28","slug":"malaysias-food-price-increase-in-the-first-four-months-of-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/malaysias-food-price-increase-in-the-first-four-months-of-2011\/","title":{"rendered":"Malaysia\u2019s Food Price Increase"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/span><\/strong>–\u00a0 Is Double The Global Average In The First Four Months Of 2011<\/strong><\/em>
The latest inflation statistics released by Bank Negara Malaysia\u00a0 for the first four months of 2011 (up to April 2011) is alarming. I am particularly concerned with the prices for food and non-alcoholic beverages that saw a 4.9% increase for the period January to April 2011 when compared to a similar period in 2010.<\/p>\n

If this pattern persists for the remainder of the year, 2011 will register the second highest food price increase for the people to bear since 2006. This will repeat the pain of 2008 when food prices increased by 8.8% due to a sudden hike in petrol and fuel prices.<\/p>\n

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Table 1:
Food price increase was highest in 2008 due to petrol and fuel price hike; the similar trend is expected to repeat this year (*2011 is an estimate)<\/p>\n

Food prices in Malaysia increase at more than twice the rate of global food prices in the first four months of 2011. A comparison of consumer price index (CPI) for global food prices published by United Nation\u2019s Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) against BNM\u2019s statistics foretells the economic misery that will affect millions of ordinary Malaysians if the Federal Government is reckless in its subsidy rationalisation program:<\/p>\n

\"http:\/\/www.buletinonline.net\/http:\/\/buletinonline.net\/v7\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/foodincreasetable2.jpg\"|
Table 2:
Malaysia\u2019s food price increases at more than twice the rate of global food price increase<\/p>\n

There is a direct correlation between haphazard removal of subsidies that affects the majority of Malaysians and the persistent food price increases registered in the first four months of the year. <\/p>\n

Furthermore, the moral and social justification for offloading more financial burden to the public to solve the Federal Government\u2019s budget deficit is weak; when the main excesses and wastages that led to the budget deficit in the first place are left untouched. The rakyat will find it hard to swallow the reality that they have to shoulder the responsibility for a decade\u2019s worth of Barisan Nasional\u2019s economic mismanagement especially when they know the tycoons and cronies who benefitted most from the largess of the past decade are left unpunished.<\/p>\n

Pakatan Rakyat has outlined a clear set of steps to be taken in order to reduce the national budget deficit without overly burdening the rakyat in its Buku Jingga. This includes the removal of the RM19 billion corporate subsidies given to the elite and well connected companies including the Independent Power Producers (IPPs) and instituting an effective war against corruption to prevent an estimated RM28 billion leak and wastages suffered by the Federal Government each year (as concluded from the 2008 Auditor General\u2019s Report).<\/p>\n

At the rate that the food price is increasing, by the end of 2011 the rakyat will have to pay an extra 30% cost for each food item compared to 2005. Within 6 years, the food prices have increased by 30% when the average pay increase for Malaysian workers over the period of 2001 and 2010 is only 2.6%.<\/p>\n

A vote for Barisan Nasional is a vote for economic mismanagement and escalating food prices.<\/p>\n

ANWAR IBRAHIM
LEADER OF OPPOSITION
20 MAY 2011
<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

–\u00a0 Is Double The Global Average In The First Four Months Of 2011The latest inflation statistics released by Bank Negara Malaysia\u00a0 for the first four months of 2011 (up to April 2011) is alarming. I am particularly concerned with the prices for food and non-alcoholic beverages that saw a 4.9% increase for the period January […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"better_featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5961"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5961\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}