# Doing Business in Ipoh and Perak: The Cost Case

> Perak is genuinely cheaper — industrial land at a fraction of Selangor's, the lowest household living costs in Malaysia — and the trade-offs are a slack labour market, a flat population, a bulk-only port and no international air link.

- Category: business
- Language: en
- Status: published
- Updated: 2026-07-21
- Canonical: https://negaraku.md/en/business/doing-business-ipoh-perak

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This is a short page on purpose. Perak's legal regime is the same as Selangor's, its
councils publish little, and the honest Perak story fits in eight hundred words rather
than two thousand. What is genuinely local is the cost structure — and what it costs you.

## Who licenses you

Ipoh licenses under the **Undang-Undang Kecil Pelesenan Tred, Perniagaan dan Perindustrian
(Majlis Bandaraya Ipoh) 2017**, gazetted **Pk. P.U. 13 on 15 February 2017** under the
Local Government Act 1976. **MBI's own licence-types page still cites a 1987 Majlis
Perbandaran Ipoh amendment by-law** — superseded, and a good reason to cite the gazette.
That gazette is published as a **combined Pk. P.U. 13 volume carrying the Ipoh, Taiping and
Teluk Intan by-laws in sequence**; MBI does not host its own copy, so the Ipoh by-law — and
the fees below — sit inside that volume on the Taiping (MPT) council's site, as its opening
by-law.

**By-law 6** gives a minimum **12-month** term and permits up to **36 months**, with
renewal due on or before expiry. The gazette carries real fee schedules by activity and
floor area — animal feed manufacturing RM410 under 93 square metres, RM530 to 186, RM650
above; an advertising agency RM230 and RM410; import-export RM290 and RM530. A certified
copy is RM50, and **licence transfer costs 20 per cent of the annual fee**. Processing is
**RM30 for a business licence, RM50 for a premises signboard, RM30 for the composite**,
transacted through **e-Lesen MBI**.

Perak has **15 local authorities and no state-wide licensing portal** — the same
fragmentation as Selangor, on a smaller base.

## The cost case, with sources

MIDA publishes the same fields for every state, which makes the comparison clean.

| | **Perak** | Selangor | Kuala Lumpur |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Industrial land | **RM18–38 psf** | RM65–200 | — |
| Ready-built factory, rent | **RM0.60–1.70 psf/mo** | RM1.50–3.00 | — |
| Prime office, rent | **Ipoh RM16–24 per m²/mo** | RM53.80–69.00 | RM65–118 |

NAPIC puts the **average Perak house price at RM287,003** in 2025 against a national
RM502,922 and Kuala Lumpur's RM819,848. DOSM's basic-living-expenditure series records
**Perak with the lowest mean household basic living expenditure in Malaysia, RM3,727**,
against a national RM4,729 and Selangor's RM5,854.

**One thing that is not cheaper: the minimum wage.** P.U.(A) 376 sets RM1,700 nationally,
in force for all employers from 1 August 2025. There is no state rate.

## The economic case, and the trade-off

DOSM's *GDP by State, 2025* records Perak at **RM91.5 billion, up 5.7 per cent — its
strongest growth in more than a decade**, and ahead of the national 5.2 per cent.
**Manufacturing grew 15.2 per cent** to RM19.3 billion, 21.1 per cent of the state
economy, driven by a **162.9 per cent surge in transport equipment** as automotive
manufacturing expanded. Services are RM56.6 billion, 61.8 per cent, up 3.4 per cent;
agriculture RM12.5 billion at 13.6 per cent; mining just **0.6 per cent** — the tin story
is entirely historical.

GDP per capita is **RM41,960** against a national RM59,167.

The trade-offs are equally sourced. Unemployment ran **3.6 per cent** in 2024 against a
national 3.2. The population is about **2.57 million and essentially flat**, with roughly
927,000 in the Kinta district around Ipoh — a real catchment that is not growing. Malaysia
Airports classifies Ipoh among its **14 domestic airports** and publishes no route page.
**Lumut is a bulk cargo port and handles no containers**, so a containerised exporter still
routes through Port Klang or Penang. The genuine connectivity asset is rail: KTMB's ETS
runs Ipoh to KL Sentral in as little as **two hours**.

Perak sits wholly within the **NCER**, and InvestPerak — formally the Perak Investment
Management Centre, established 2006, reporting to the Menteri Besar — issues the No
Objection Letter for manufacturing licence applications. It publishes **no Perak-specific
incentive scheme**; do not assume one exists.

## Common mistakes

- **Citing MBI's 1987 by-law** because MBI's own page does. Pk. P.U. 13 of 2017 governs.
- **Implying a lower minimum wage.** RM1,700 is national.
- **Quoting a TEU figure for Lumut.** It is a bulk port.
- **Confusing PKNPk with `pknp.gov.my`,** which is Pahang's development corporation.

## What's next

Get the 2017 gazette, not the council summary, and price the composite and transfer fees
into your model. Then compare against
[Selangor](/en/business/doing-business-selangor) and
[Penang](/en/business/doing-business-penang) on the MIDA space table, and read
the [NCER guide](/en/business/ncer-guide) for the corridor layer.

## Sources

- Undang-Undang Kecil Pelesenan Tred, Perniagaan dan Perindustrian (Majlis Bandaraya Ipoh) 2017, Pk. P.U. 13 — the opening by-law of the combined Perak volume (Ipoh, Taiping and Teluk Intan) hosted on the Taiping (MPT) council site, as MBI publishes no standalone copy — https://www.mptaiping.gov.my/images/undang_undang_kecil/UNDANG-UNDANG_KECIL_PELESENAN_TRED_PERNIAGAAN_DAN_PERINDUSTRIAN_MPT_2017.pdf (Perak Government Gazette)
- Cara Mendapat Lesen — https://www.mbi.gov.my/index.php/cara-mendapat-lesen (Majlis Bandaraya Ipoh)
- Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by State, 2025 — https://www.dosm.gov.my/portal-main/release-content/gross-domestic-product-gdp-by-state-2025 (Department of Statistics Malaysia)
- Market Rate of Business Space — https://www.mida.gov.my/setting-up-content/space/ (MIDA)
- Malaysian House Price Index 2025 — https://napic.jpph.gov.my/storage/app/media/3-penerbitan/Shahrul/Bahagian%20Indeks%20Harta%20Tanah/Laporan%20Jadual%20MHPI/Q4%202025/MHPI%20Report%202025.pdf (NAPIC, JPPH)
- State Socioeconomic Report 2024 — https://www.dosm.gov.my/portal-main/release-content/state-socioeconomic-report-2024 (Department of Statistics Malaysia)
- Overview of InvestPerak — https://www.investperak.gov.my/overview-investperak/ (Perak Investment Management Centre)

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Source of truth: https://github.com/negaraku-md/NegaraKu.md
License: CC BY-SA 4.0