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| A customer looks at the price of a box of peaches at a large grocery store in Seoul, Sept. 23. Yonhap |
By Kim Jae-heun
A 34-year-old office worker surnamed Kim was surprised to see how expensive bananas have become amid a series of news stories that the soaring U.S. dollar has sharply raised the prices of imported fruit.
"I have been purchasing bananas once a week for many years, but I have never seen their price go so high as it is now. It makes me hesitate to grab one when I see how much it costs," Kim said.
The Korean currency ended at 1,441 won per dollar on Oct. 1, hitting a 13-year low against the dollar. This caused the price for a bunch of bananas to increase from the 3,000 won range to 5,480 won at large supermarkets in Seoul last week.
According to the Korea Agro-Fisheries & Food Trade Corporation, the wholesale price of imported bananas the day before stood at 31,100 won ($2.08) per 13 kilograms, up 10.2 percent from 28,232 won a month ago. Compared to last year's wholesale price, the price of the fruit jumped 23.3 percent in the same period.
In addition to rising production and logistics costs, the soaring exchange rate of the dollar against the won played a critical role in the skyrocketing price of imported fruit.
The prices of mango and pineapple also increased nearly 10 percent last month.
"I can't afford to buy imported fruit anymore. The price went up too much. I might get some locally produced fruit like apples or grapes instead for a while," a 32-year-old housewife surnamed Suh said.
Local supermarkets are also turning their attention to locally produced fruit for their stable supply and prices.
"We expect the prices of overall imported foods and fruit to increase in the next few weeks affected by the rapidly depreciating won against the dollar. Instead, we will focus on selling more locally produced fruit as the farms here are decreasingly vulnerable to severe weather conditions," a local retail firm official said.
The prices of locally produced fruit like apples and Shine Muscat (a type of grape) have fallen 14.6 percent and 21 percent, respectively, year-on-year. This led to the sales of local fruit increasing11.5 percent between March and June this year.
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