Thursday, June 3, 2010

Taiwan: Online platform launched to spur banana sales

Taiwan: Online platform launched to spur banana sales

The Council of Agriculture launched an online fruit marketing platform Tuesday to promote banana sales as part of ongoing efforts to help local banana farmers cope with a fall in the price of the fruit.

According to the council's Agriculture and Food Agency (AFA), www.afa.gov.tw/FarmerOrderList.asp is aimed at facilitating group purchases by schools as well as by public and private sector workers.

The fruit is being sold in 15 kg and 6 kg packages for NT$300 and NT$280, respectively, and customers who order five boxes or more will be provided with free delivery, the agency said.

AFA Chief Secretary Hsu Han-ching said local banana farmers have suffered from falling banana prices this year, partly because exports to Japan -- Taiwan's main overseas banana market -- have been lackluster.

Since the start of this year until May 25, banana export volume to Japan totaled 4,807 metric tons, compared with around 6,000 metric tons during the same period of last year, Hsu said.

Thanks to efforts to stimulate banana exports, another 237 metric tons of bananas have been exported to Japan over the past week, he said, adding that a total of 800 metric tons of bananas will be shipped to Beijing and Shanghai by the end of June.

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