KUALA LUMPUR, September 27 – Minister of Economy, Rafizi Ramli, is defending his earlier statement that Malaysians are addicted to eating out, saying it was not intentionally fabricated but based on recorded data. He said the findings were obtained from data collected over the past 20 years. “The government has complete data collected every two years through household expenditure surveys. Through this data, we can see that income spent on eating out, whether brought home or eaten in restaurants or stalls, has been growing in recent years.
This is not about me making up stories, but it is based on data, he said. Last Monday, Rafizi was reported to have said that the addiction to eating out accounted for a major portion of Malaysians’ monthly income spent on fulfilling this desire. According to him, as a result of this unhealthy practice, it also caused a decrease in their income and made them more sensitive to sudden inflation in the prices of cooked food, even when the overall main inflation rate had decreased. Rafizi’s statement sparked controversy when some quarters, including former Health Minister and former UMNO Youth Chief Khairy Jamaluddin Abu Bakar, criticized it.
Khairy said Rafizi’s action of touching on the issue of the people’s addiction to eating out to the point of affecting their monthly income should not have been done because it was like poking a hornet’s nest. Furthermore, Pandan Member of Parliament said the main thing that makes it difficult to reduce inflation is the culture of eating out, and it is a major component of inflation from month to month. “The only household expenditure that is the most stubborn and difficult to reduce is actually food that is cooked and taken away,” he said.
