Biz Unusual

Growing concern over prices

By Huang Yuli (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-11-11 16:14

Local residents buy cabbage at Beixinqiao, Dongcheng district. [Photo / China Daily]

Instead of movie tickets or discounted dinner coupons, a growing number of residents in the capital are going online to group-buy their fruit and vegetables, so as to offset rising prices.

The prices of many vegetables have doubled since last year, according to Liu Tong, head of the Xinfadi market statistics office. For example, the price of cabbage was 0.4 yuan a kilogram last year, but this year it hit 1 yuan. Xinfadi is the largest farm produce market in Beijing.

Feng Qinyu, a retiree who lives in Shijingshan district, told METRO she and her husband found the rising prices staggering.

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"A kilogram of eggs costs at least 9.6 yuan. The month before last it was 6-8 yuan," she said.

She said she usually goes to the morning market rather than the supermarket as prices are cheaper.

"Cabbage is 1.5 yuan a kilogram at the shop near my compound."

In an interview with Beijing News, an employee with the information center of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Agriculture said that the price of food has been rising since September, and vegetable prices are the ones rising most.

An earlier report from China National Radio said the shrinking fields in the capital's suburbs in recent years have become an important factor affecting vegetable prices.