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Malaysia
This Week in AsiaEconomics

Malaysians feel the pinch as the ‘shringgit’ returns – and there’s no quick fix for PM Anwar

  • The currency last month reached a 26-year low, shaking markets and rattling ordinary people as the prices of daily goods surge
  • Analysts blame structural problems and say PM Anwar needs to make long-term economic reforms – and find the political support for the measures

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A worker arranges packaged fish crackers at a store in Terengganu. Ordinary Malaysians have been hit by the ringgit’s drop in value, as the cost of shopping surges with each depreciation. Photo: Bloomberg
Joseph Sipalan
Two small bags of top soil worth 10 ringgit (US$2.13) were all Al-Amin Mat Jeni managed to sell at his stall in Malaysia’s capital Kuala Lumpur on a recent weekday morning – barely enough to buy lunch.
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For the last 20 years, the 75-year-old has diligently arrived at the crack of dawn to set up his stall on the city’s outskirts selling gardening goods.

But business has never been this bad, he said. And it’s not just him – all the stallholders at the open-air market in the upscale Taman Tun Dr Ismail suburb are suffering.

“Just look around you … nobody has sold anything,” he told This Week in Asia.

Street food vendors serve a customer in Kuala Lumpur. Malaysia’s ringgit has been among Asia ’s worst performers for more than two years now. Photo: Bloomberg
Street food vendors serve a customer in Kuala Lumpur. Malaysia’s ringgit has been among Asia ’s worst performers for more than two years now. Photo: Bloomberg
Customers have not come back in serious numbers since the Covid-19 pandemic hit, Al-Amin said, speculating that many had now likely trimmed their spending as the weak ringgit jacks up the prices of daily necessities.
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Malaysia’s ringgit has been among Asia’s worst performers for more than two years now, sinking lower than its last turbulent period in 2015, when it was uncharitably dubbed the ‘shringgit’ for its shrinking value.
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