THE government’s plans to increase the minimum wage to RM1,500 should be done in a progressive manner, said Ameer Ali Mydin, who heads the popular hypermarket chain Mydin.

Ameer Ali, who is also the Bumiputra Retailers Organisation vice-president, said the minimum wage quantum was not an issue but urged the government to introduce a lower figure so as not to “shock” the retail industry.

“Retailers depend on disposable income. If they have higher disposable income, it will help retailers, but we must never shock the industry. 

“A progressive increase and a known increase is always better,” he said after meeting the Council of Eminent Persons at Ilham Tower in Kuala Lumpur today. 

Ameer said he suggested to the council that a RM50 or RM100 a year increase would help retailers manage their budget.

“This is so that we know where are we going and would benefit retailers.

“All of us have a cost structure. I have 10,000 workers and by increasing the minimum wage, business will be affected tremendously.

“There must be a planned increase (for minimum wage).”

The current minimum wage set by the previous government is RM1,200. The Pakatan Harapan government has pledged as part of its election manifesto to raise it to RM1,500.

Ameer was also the operator of 1Malaysia People’s Grocery Stores (KR1M), which had incurred losses of up to RM100 million.

KR1M was Mydin’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) project but he did not expect it to record such huge losses.

On the scrapping of the goods and services tax, Ameer said the cost of goods should go down by about 6%, but he said he did not see this happening yet.

“After the removal of GST, the prices should have gone down by 5.56%. We need a week or so to adjust.”

Ameer also said that Mydin has spent close to RM20 million to install a GST-compliant system.

He hoped the governent would make the transition to the SST easier.

“We hope SST will use a hybrid sytem with the use of a current mechanism.” – June 5, 2018.