A retailer categorizes apples before packaging them for sale in a market in Qixia, Shandong province, on Oct 27. [Photo/China Daily]
Price rise means rich pickings for growers, report Duan Yan in Qixia and Hu Yongqi in Beijing.Lu Guoqi could not stop smiling. Sitting behind the bars of a tricycle loaded with apples, the grocer has been making a tidy profit in recent weeks.
"The price has never been so high," said the 58-year-old from Qixia in Shandong province. This time last year, he was making just 2.1 yuan (31 US cents) for every jin (a Chinese measurement equal to 500 grams) of apples. Today, the price is 3.1 yuan.
Apples are the latest in the growing number of fruits and vegetables that have seen sudden price hikes over the last 12 months, with others including garlic, mung beans and cabbages.
Although many of the voices in the marketplace and in the media are laying the blame on opportunist speculators, experts say their involvement is only one of the factors driving up prices.
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