MalayMail/Bernama-Sept 14
When global supply chains come under strain, it is almost always the lowest-income households that feel it first and hardest. A rise in the price of imported fertilizer or crude oil rarely stays confined to petrol pumps; it filters into bus fares, cooking oil, chicken, and the electricity bill — and for a household already spending most of its income on necessities, there is little room to absorb the shock. In Malaysia, that shock has been real but comparatively contained. Since April, the country has been navigating the fallout of the conflict in West Asia and the disruptions it triggered to global energy and shipping routes — yet unlike some nations forced into fuel rationing or emergency measures, Malaysian households have so far continued to buy petrol, cook meals and switch on the lights without major disruption. Officials say that is the result of early, coordinated government intervention rather than chance.
Lower-income households typically spend a far larger share of their income on food, fuel and utilities than higher earners, leaving little flexibility when global costs rise. A spike in shipping or crude prices raises the cost of transport; a jump in fertilizer prices raises the cost of growing food; a rise in feedstock prices raises the cost of manufacturing daily goods — and all of it eventually reaches the shelf. Tan Sri Mohd Hassan Marican, chairman of the Crisis Management Task Force (PPPK) under the National Economic Action Council (MTEN), has cautioned against viewing the crisis narrowly as an oil price problem.
He told Bernama the disruption unfolds in stages, moving from fuel and logistics costs into petrochemical, feedstocks, plastics, fertilizers, manufacturing and construction before it reaches households. To soften that pass-through, the government has relied on targeted subsidies, price controls and direct assistance — including the Budi 95 and Budi Diesel schemes, the Subsidized Diesel Control System (SKDS), support for e-hailing drivers, fishermen, smallholders and agricultural producers, and retail-level measures such as anti-profiteering enforcement, Jualan Rahmah Madani and Jualan Agro Madani. Read more at:
