Living in Malaysia is expensive

If you don't know already, it's expensive to live in Malaysia, especially in Kuala Lumpur. A report shows that Malaysians have less purchasing power than many nationals elsewhere.

The Malaysian Insider, an online Malaysian news website, examined the purchasing power of Malaysians in comparison to nationals of other countries. The website cited a 2010 Prices and Wages report by UBS AG, a Swiss banking giant.

Here are the highlights:

The purchasing power of KL residents is 33.8% of New Yorkers; 42% compared to London, 33.7% to Sydney, 32.6% to Los Angeles, and 31.6% to Zurich.

KL workers need to labour 22 minutes for a bread loaf. In comparison, Los Angeles counterparts take 18 minutes. In Sydney, it's 16 minutes. In Tokyo, 15 minutes. In Zurich, 12 minutes.

The Malaysian Insider also compared broadband prices in Malaysia to those in countries. Even after currency conversion, Malaysia comes out on top... in expensiveness. Here's the summary:

Kuala Lumpur - 5Mbps broadband package - RM149
London - 10Mbps broadband package - GBP13.50
Melbourne - 5-8Mbps broadband package - AUD40
New York - 7Mbps broadband package - USD41.95

Here's another tidbit from The Malaysian Insider article:

In KL, a Honda Civic is priced at RM115,000 - 20 times an auditor's average monthly earnings.

In Melbourne & London, the price is respectively AUD25,000 and GBP19,000 - 3 times an auditor's average monthly earnings in those places.

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