January 21, 2014
The Malaysian Consumer and the Fight against Inflation
by Tan Sri Dr. Mahboob Sulaiman@www.nst.com.my
As a society, we too have a role to play in ensuring that inflation is controlled. Let us exercise our power, as consumers, to control unreasonable price increases by judicious spending and economising on our energy use as well as changing our consumption spending pattern.–Dr. Mahboob Sulaiman
THE interest on inflation is reactivated now with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) approaching three per cent.
Malaysians are used to price stability for a long time, except for a few years, such as in 1973/1974, 1998, and in 2008. The inflation in 1973/74 and in 2008 was caused by an increase in oil and rice prices at the same time.
Some agitators recently conducted a demonstration on the eve of this new year, using the rising prices as an issue to air their grievances.I wonder what would they do if the country was experiencing an inflation rate of eight to 12 per cent annually as is being experienced for many years in China and India, given the countries’ rapid economic growth.
Blaming the authorities alone for the price pressure reflects a poor understanding of market forces. There is a market involving producers and consumers out there whose total effect determines the prices of products. This is the famous Adam Smith’s invisible hand or the market forces. The government’s policy to control prices only covers essential goods and services, enforced especially during festive seasons.
Inflation and high prices are two different things; inflation is a rate of change in general price level. One can have low inflation despite prevailing high prices of goods and services or high inflation at low price levels. It is the rate of annual price increase that is defined as inflation. Nevertheless, high price increases will invariably be translated into inflationary pressures.
High prices can be caused by high level of aggregate demand (demand-pull factor) when the economy grows beyond its sustainable levels. Our current rate of economic growth is still below our growth potential of about six to seven per cent per annum. Hence we cannot say that our current inflation is caused by excessive demand. There are also other contributing factors, such as rising cost of production including high wages, high cost of imports, and supply shortages as well as market imperfection.
One factor that may also cause increase in price level is declining rates of exchange which result in rising cost of imports. The Malaysian ringgit declined recently, with the rising value of the dollar under the impetus of the tapering policy of the Federal Reserve which led to outflows of fund from the region back to the United States, thus strengthening the US dollar vis-a-vis other currencies.
Hopefully, the decline in the ringgit will spur increases in exports thus helping our balance of payments position again. An improved external demand will help the nation to increase industrial production and a higher rate of economic growth.
The current increase in price level has not pressured our central bank to undertake monetary policy measures, such as raising interest rates and initiating open market operations. The bank is therefore still monitoring the price development.
Inflationary expectations by consumers and suppliers may result in price increases, too, as the nation is deliberating on toll increases, wage increases, increases in local government assessment rates and revision in electricity tariffs. Suppliers may have also increased the prices of certain goods now that the government has raised fuel price (RON95) and reduced sugar subsidy.
Powerful supply chain organisations can indeed raise prices much higher than the expected increase brought about by the 20 sen increase in RON95 fuel price and doing away with sugar subsidy. Analysing the supply chain using the input-output technique, tells us that supplies account for the bulk of costs of products and services. Thus, market intermediaries have a lot to explain the price increases if the resultant price adjustment after subsidy rationalisation appears unreasonable.
As usual, we as consumers are again at the disadvantage with price increases because of our weaker position as well as the lack of information on price conditions to enable us to exercise our purchasing power effectively and contribute to price stabilisation. However, this should not be the case. Consumers must exercise their power to ensure suppliers do not willy-nilly increase prices.
A detailed and comprehensive study of the causes of the current high prices needs to be done immediately so as to enable an accurate policy prescription to be implemented.
If supply is the cause of price increase then policy prescription may include import liberalisation and reducing domestic supply bottlenecks to increase domestic production and supply. In such a case, the policy response to increase KR1M (Kedai Rakyat Satu Malaysia) outlets therefore appears quite right.
Given the above explanation, one should not jump into conclusion that public policies have failed to arrest price increases. As a society, we too have a role to play in ensuring that inflation is controlled. Let us exercise our power, as consumers, to control unreasonable price increases by judicious spending and economising on our energy use as well as changing our consumption spending pattern.