Channel NewsAsia 5 Feb 08;
SINGAPORE: Some hawkers at wet markets are complaining that business has dropped by some 20 percent as customers are staying away due to rising food prices.
In the past years, many Singaporeans would have completed their shopping at the wet market to prepare for the Lunar New Year reunion dinner the following night.
Stallholders at the Chinatown wet market said shoppers are more cautious this year. Fewer are buying seafood like prawns and pomfrets even though the prices have not changed much from last year.
There is also ample supply of live poultry from Malaysia, which has kept prices affordable. The price of pork, though, has been going up.
Some stallholders said they are absorbing the costs so that they can sell more.
Fruits and vegetables have seen the biggest price fluctuations. In some cases, prices have shot up by as much as 50 percent.
Citrus fruit tangor cost S$8 per kilogramme on Monday, but overnight, the price rose to S$12.
Stallholders said rainy weather in Malaysia has affected the harvest of most vegetables, and some now cost 30 percent more.- CNA/so
