Malaysia doesn’t have a huge population of expat workers. The Malaysian Office of Statistics puts the expat population at around 35,000 in a population of almost 25 million people. But because they’re concentrated in the oil and gas industry and many of them live in KL, sometimes it can seem like they are everywhere.

Since the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, Malaysia has been on a steady upward course, but some legacies remain. Many expats were pulled out of the country and some sectors of the economy contracted dramatically; construction shrank by 23.5% and manufacturing by 9%. Malaysia entered a recession and many construction projects were simply abandoned by their developers. Significant government intervention helped to pull the country out of the crisis, but asset values are only now returning to their pre 1997 levels. Malaysia isn’t seen as a ‘hardship posting’ these days and many companies are looking to cut back on expat packages. Even so, expats in KL could hardly be said to be suffering, and for the most part they lead a far more glamorous lifestyle than they would at home.

The weakening dollar hasn’t had as dramatic an effect on the standard of living here as it has in some other regions. Salaries seem to have kept pace with rising costs and since many expenses are covered by employers directly (such as school fees), rising costs don’t impact on the employee’s pocket. Prices on just about everything are beginning to creep up though and there is talk of the government reducing its petrol subsidy, which will push prices of most goods and services up further. Compared to the average Malaysian though, expats are still in a very favourable position.