China: The soaring price of imported durians

Recently, people have become less inclined to give moon cakes as presents for the Autumn Festival and are turning instead to fresh fruits. 

Statistics show that 27,273 tons of fresh fruit is arriving to the market per day. That is an increase of 0.3% compared to the same period last year. The daily average trade volume is 273,014 tons, again an increase of 0.38% compared to last year. Whereas there is little or no movement in the price of fruits produced in China, imported fruits show clear price fluctuations. 

Gold Pillow durian fruits are currently sold for 36 RMB to 44 RMB per kg. In the past few months, this was only around 32 RMB per kg. The durian fruits from the Zhongcai market in Nanjing come from Thailand and Vietnam for the greater part. The quality of the Thai durian fruits is rather good and they occupy around 60% of the total market. 

There are three main reasons why the durian price is going up. The first reason is that the weather is cooling down. As a result, the durian fruits can be stored easily and merchants increase their sales. Secondly, the supply of Thai durians on the market has dropped compared to previous seasons, so the import price is moving upward. The third and final reason is that the transport cost for the import is increasing as well.

Source: www.yangtse.com