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Is the meat in Malaysia too expensive? We checked the prices!

PicodiAugust 29, 2023

Meat, which is a source of protein, fats and vitamins, is an important part of the diet for many people. However, isn’t meat in Malaysia too expensive?

We decided to compare the prices of 1 kg of chicken fillet around the continent.

Why chicken?

  1. Poultry is the most commonly eaten meat[1];
  2. Chicken is white meat, which is easier to digest and healthier.

Price of meat in APAC

Our ranking consists of 23 APAC countries. It turns out that the continental average price of 1 kg of chicken fillet is $5.11.

The cheapest chicken meat can be found in Pakistan (RM 11.06/kg), Bangladesh (RM 11.78/kg) and Thailand (RM 11.86/kg). On the other hand, citizens of Singapore (RM 45.66/kg), Hong Kong (RM 42.99/kg) and New Zealand (RM 42.83/kg), have to pay the highest prices for their poultry.

In the chicken price ranking, Malaysia ranked as the 12th country out of 23 countries included – in July 2023, the average price of 1 kg of chicken was RM 13.30 ($9.96), over the APAC average.

Comparison of meat prices with wages

In order to make the comparison more fair, we calculated how many kilograms of chicken can be bought with the average wage in each country.

The best relation between meat prices and wages can be found in Singapore, where the average wage can get you 506 kg of chicken breast. Much less fits in the Australian (403 kg) and Japanese (360 kg) average wage.

The average wage in Malaysia gets you 204 kg of chicken. This is more than in countries such as Taiwan (202 kg), India (186 kg) and Iraq (142 kg).

Click to see the entire ranking

No.CountryNumber of kilograms of chicken that can be bought with the average salary
1.Singapore506 kg
2.Australia403 kg
3.Japan360 kg
4.Hong Kong323 kg
5.New Zealand318 kg
6.South Korea283 kg
7.China266 kg
8.Thailand214 kg
9.Malaysia204 kg
10.Taiwan202 kg
11.India186 kg
12.Iraq142 kg
13.Vietnam120 kg
14.Bangladesh99 kg
15.Indonesia97 kg
16.Iran94 kg
17.Uzbekistan93 kg
18.Philippines76 kg
19.Cambodia68 kg
20.Nepal68 kg
21.Pakistan66 kg
22.Kyrgyzstan62 kg
23.Sri Lanka41 kg

Prices in Malaysian online supermarkets

Methodology and sources

Prices of 1 kg of chicken breast, as well as the average wages in different APAC countries, are from numbeo.com, a platform where hundreds of thousands of users from around the world monitor prices of products and services. For currency conversion, we used the average exchange rate data from Google Finance for July 2023. Prices in Malaysian online supermarkets as of 02.08.2023.

Other sources:

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/274522/global-per-capita-consumption-of-meat/

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