$28 million, the organisation was required to take out a loan for the balance. Initially, Malaya's two other major ethnic groups, the Indians and Malays, escaped the worst of Japanese maltreatment. The Japanese wanted the support of the Indian community to free India from British rule, and did not consider the Malays to be a threat. All three races were encouraged to assist the Japanese war effort by providing finance and labour. Some 73,000 Malayans were thought to have been coerced into working on the Thai-Burma Railway, with an estimated 25,000 dying. The Japanese also took the railway track from Malacca and other branch lines for construction of the railway. As the war progressed all three ethnic communities began to suffer deprivations from increasingly severe rationing, hyper-inflation, and a lack of resources. A blockade by Allied forces on the Japanese occupied territories coupled with a submarine campaign reduced the ability of the Japanese to move supplies between its occupied countries. Both the Malay and Indian communities gradually came into more conflict with the occupying Japanese prompting more joining the resistance movement, including Abdul Razak bin Hussein, and Abdul Rahman bin Hajih Tiab. Yeop Mahidin Bin Mohamed Shariff, a former Royal Malay Regiment officer, founded a Malay-based resistance group immediately after the fall of Singapore in February 1942. Commerce About 150,000 tons of rubber was taken by the Japanese, but this was considerably less than Malaya had exported prior to the occupation. Because Malaya produced more rubber and tin than Japan was able to utilize, Malaya's export income fell as it no longer had access to world markets. Real per capita income fell to about half its 1941 level in 1944 and less than half the 1938 level in 1945. A further factor was a lack of available merchant shipping, noticeable from early in 1942. As an alternative to shipping the Japanese sought to create a rail link from Malaya to Manchukuo. Prior to the war, Malaya produced 40% of the world's rubber and a high proportion of the world's tin. It imported more than 50% of its rice requirements, a staple food for its population. The Allied blockade meant that both imports and the limited exports to Japan were dramatically reduced. In June 1943 tin was in short supply in Japan despite it occupying Malaya because of the transport problems. During the occupation the Japanese replaced the Malayan dollar with