FRUIT PRICES SOAR

[Anchor Lead]

Last year’s unusually long summer rains and typhoons resulted in poor fruit harvests and subsequent price spikes this year. Shipments of refrigerated fruits have fallen dramatically, boosting the prices of apples, pears and other fruits by up to 70% compared to last year.

[Pkg]

This is the fruit section at a supermarket. Shoppers check the prices and hesitate for a while before turning away.

[Soundbite] Jo Jeong-hwi(Local Resident) : "We eat apples all year round. But I won’t buy any here since it’s so expensive."

The current consumer price for ten apples is 34,665 won. The price has gone up by a staggering 69.5% compared to a year earlier. The price of 10 pears has spiked 44.2% on-year, resulting in them being 42.2% higer than average. Higher prices of apples and pears have also caused the price of Korean melons to increase 3 to 4% on-year. The price hikes were driven by poor harvests caused by last year’s unusually long rainy season and typhoons. This consequently led to much smaller shipments of refrigerated fruits. Fruit prices generally stabilize in the spring when other fruits such as strawberries and Korean melons make it to the market. But this year the prices have remained high because the outputs are woefully inadequate.

[Soundbite] Kim Won-tae(Korea Rural Economic Institute) : "This month’s apple and pear shipments are likely to fall by more than 30% due to last year’s poor harvest. This situation is projected to continue until newly harvested fruits hit the market."

Farmers are also expected to downsize fruit cultivation areas by 3 to 4% this year due to fire blight and other diseases. This could push up the prices of new fruits harvested in the fall. Fruit prices are projected to remain quite volatile as imports of bananas, pineapples, and grapes are likely to dwindle this month as the Philippines, Chile and other fruit exporting countries also suffered poor harvests.