Fruit festival to be held in Bangkok

NONTHABURI, July 19 (TNA) – The Commerce Ministry joined hands with a leading department store to hold a fruit festival this month as a channel to distribute fruit surplus to consumers. Sontirat Sontijirawong, Vice Minister for Commerce said that the fruit festival is scheduled from July 22-30 at Siam Paragon high-end shopping mall. The fair will offer varieties of fruit such as durians, mangosteens, rambutans and lychees. The ministry has also overseen longan supplies, which is expected to increase by 20 per cent this year from 750,000 tonnes to 970, 000 tonnes. However, he said more supplies will not cause falling prices as the produce will be used to make dried longans for export to the key market in China. He said the harvest of mangosteens in the east delayed, so it came out to the market at the same time when the mangosteens from growers in the South were released to the market. Oversupply caused mangosteen prices to drop earlier, but now the situation has returned to normal and the prices are now in line with the market mechanism. The ministry will gear up to lay out long-term plans for management of fruit produces to balance the demand and supply, aiming to push Thailand to be one of the leading tropical fruit exporters, he added. (TNA)