Inflation in Malaysia Since 1960: Mr Xero’s 66 Years of Prices

I’m Mr Xero. I was 25 when this photo was taken, and I have watched Malaysian prices for 66 years — from Merdeka-era kopitiams to QR codes on the table.

Everything got dearer. That is not the lesson. The lesson is what rising prices did to the money I left sitting still. Mr Xero is a character, but every price in these twelve cards is real, with its source under the card. (Card 9’s growth rate is an assumption, and it says so.)

Sources CompareHero: Malaysian food prices, 1957 vs 2022 (archived copy) · DOSM 2024 average prices, reported by Malay Mail

Around Merdeka, a packet of nasi lemak wrapped in banana leaf cost 10 to 15 sen, a roti canai about 20 sen and a teh tarik just 5 sen, according to CompareHero’s look back at 1957 prices — a 40-sen breakfast. (We said cents then, in Malayan dollars, but one old cent is one sen today.) Prices hardly moved in the early 1960s: the official price index rose only about 1% a year from 1960 to 1966.

Two honest notes. These are remembered and reported prices, not an official survey. And the packets were smaller then than the plate you get today.

Sources CompareHero: Malaysian food prices, 1957 vs 2022 (archived copy) · DOSM consumer price index, annual (OpenDOSM)

These are national averages from the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) for 2024, not fancy-café prices. In 2011 the same nasi lemak averaged RM2.03 and a roti canai 90 sen, so even the last 13 years alone brought rises of 81% and 71%.

From 15 sen to RM3.68 is about 25 times the price. Roti canai went from 20 sen to RM1.54, about 8 times. Same table, same breakfast, and one rose three times as fast as the other. Prices don’t all rise together — keep that in mind for card 5.

Sources DOSM 2024 average prices, reported by Malay Mail · The Edge: nasi lemak up 81% in 13 years

What is inflation? Prices rising over time, so the same things cost more. The government measures it with the consumer price index — think of one giant trolley holding everything Malaysians buy, from rice to rent to bus fares. The Department of Statistics (DOSM) puts that index at 20.8 in 1960 and 134.6 in 2025.

So a trolley of shopping that cost RM100 in 1960 costs about RM647 today. Same twelve things, a bigger price tag. Spread over 65 years that is about 2.9% a year — small enough that nobody notices it in any single year.

Sources DOSM consumer price index, annual (OpenDOSM)

I’ve watched since 1960, but Malaysia’s house price records only begin in 1988, so this chart covers the 35 years many of you remember too. Each small chart shows how much that category rose from 1990 to 2025; the dashed line is the official average, for comparison.

Home prices rose 562% (NAPIC’s house price index, as published by the Bank for International Settlements). Food & drinks rose 243%. Healthcare 135%, transport 110%, rent and utility bills 98%, furniture and household items 70%. Clothes and shoes are 17% cheaper than in 1990. The official average: 137%.

Two things the chart cannot show. Petrol looks tame (+81%, from RM1.10 a litre to RM1.99) only because of the subsidy: in the week of 10 September 2026 the unsubsidised RON95 price was RM4.02. And the official healthcare figure is mostly clinics and medicines; the insurance consultancy Aon put Malaysia’s medical cost inflation at about 15% in 2025, with 16% expected for 2026. Your own inflation depends on what you buy.

Sources DOSM consumer price index, annual (OpenDOSM) · NAPIC house price index via BIS (FRED) · Petrol price history (Wikipedia) · RON95 RM4.02 unsubsidised, week of 10 Sep 2026 (Harapan Daily) · Aon medical inflation 15% (2025), 16% (2026), The Star

Here is the part most inflation posts leave out. DOSM’s Household Income Survey puts average household income at RM264 a month in 1970 (Peninsular Malaysia) and RM9,155 in 2024 — about 35 times higher. Over the same years, prices rose less than 6 times.

At 30 sen a packet, the 1970 pay bought 880 packets of nasi lemak. At RM3.68, the 2024 pay buys 2,488. People who kept working, and got raises as the country grew, came out ahead.

So who did inflation actually hurt? Not the worker. The saver whose money sat still.

Sources DOSM household income, 1970–2024 (OpenDOSM) · CompareHero: Malaysian food prices, 1957 vs 2022 (archived copy) · DOSM 2024 average prices, reported by Malay Mail

Every Malaysian home had that biscuit tin. Mine held RM1,000 — serious money in 1970, when the average family earned RM264 a month. It was enough for a whole trolley of shopping.

That same trolley now costs RM5,728 (DOSM’s price index went from 23.5 in 1970 to 134.6 in 2025). My notes still say RM1,000, so today they pay for only about a sixth of the trolley — two of the twelve things. Nobody stole a sen. Prices took the rest, about 3.2% a year, every year, for 55 years.

They call me Mr Xero for a reason. Money that sits still walks slowly towards zero.

Sources DOSM consumer price index, annual (OpenDOSM)

Here is the trolley that cost RM100 in 1960, priced again across my life: RM217 in 1981, RM403 in 2003 and RM647 in 2025 (DOSM price index). At 2 to 3% a year, the next doubling lands in the early-to-mid 2030s.

A quick way to feel it is the Rule of 72: divide 72 by the yearly rise and you get the years it takes for prices to double. At 3% a year that is 24 years — about one generation. Whatever you save for your 60-year-old self has to survive at least one doubling.

Sources DOSM consumer price index, annual (OpenDOSM)

Same RM1,000, same start in January 1970, but this time it goes into a unit trust — a fund that pools many people’s money and invests it in shares for them. On day one the 5.5% sales charge takes RM55, so RM945 is actually invested. If it then grows 8% a year after fund fees — the ten-year average of a Malaysian equity fund I used in my unit trust vs fixed deposit comparison — it reaches about RM70,333 by the end of 2025.

Remember the trolley that cost RM1,000 in 1970 and costs RM5,728 today? The tin’s RM1,000 pays for a sixth of it. The unit trust pays for 12 full trolleys. It is the same compounding that let the rabbit beat the tortoise.

An ETF — a fund that simply copies a stock-market index and trades on Bursa like a share — works the same way. Its upfront cost is usually a small brokerage fee instead of a sales charge, but you choose, buy and manage it yourself. Either way, this card is an illustration with an assumed growth rate, not history and not a promise. Unit trusts are not guaranteed, and the next card shows how hard shares can fall.

Sources Where the 5.5% and 8% come from: Unit Trust vs Fixed Deposit · DOSM consumer price index, annual (OpenDOSM)

Here is the honest cost. Between 25 February 1997 and 1 September 1998, Bursa Malaysia’s main index (the FBM KLCI) fell 79.2%, from 1,265 points to 262.7. I was in the front car, 63 years old that year. House prices fell too, by about 12% between 1997 and 1999.

Cash never gives you a drop like that. It behaves like a block of ice in the sun: the label still says RM1,000, but every year there is a little less of it. By 2025 my block had melted to about a sixth of its 1970 size — without a single scary headline.

So the choice is not safe versus risky. It is a scary drop now and then, or a slow melt every single year. What I do when the market drops is a story of its own.

Sources FSMOne: Rise and fall of the KLCI, 1984–2014 (PDF) · NAPIC house price index via BIS (FRED) · DOSM consumer price index, annual (OpenDOSM)

Emergency money — about six months of your spending — should sit somewhere that never swings, like a savings account or fixed deposit. Its job is to be there on your worst day, not to grow.

Money you won’t touch for ten years or more has a different job: to outgrow prices, which means living with some ups and downs. The mistake I made for thirty years was treating both kinds of money the same way. If you are weighing where long-term money should sit, here is how unit trusts and fixed deposits compare in Malaysia.