Cyprus vegetable prices up 34% in Q1

The Statistical Service has produced a number of statistics relating to prices of food in recent months, showing a sharp increase in the prices of vegetables compared with the same period of 2008.
The producer price index of fresh vegetables increased by 34% in the first quarter of 2009 compared to the respective quarter of 2008.
The main reason was tomatoes, with the index for tomatoes rising by 113.9% in the first quarter of 2009 compared with the first quarter of 2008.
In March alone, the index for tomatoes rose by 20.9% compared with February.
By contrast, the producer price index for cucumbers fell by 1.4% compared with the previous month in March 2009. In the first quarter of 2009, the index recorded a decrease by 21.3% compared with the corresponding quarter of 2008.
Meanwhile, the producer price index for fruits decreased by 1.4% over the previous month in March. Compared to the corresponding month of 2008, the fruit index recorded a marginal increase of 0.7%.

Milk prices up 9% in one month

The producer price index of pork meat was stable compared with the previous month in March. The pork index increased by 5.7% in the first quarter of 2009 compared with the same quarter of 2008.
The producer price index of chicken meat was also stable in March and rose by 2.7% year on year in the first quarter.
The producer price index of cow’s milk for March 2009 increased by 9% over the previous month.
Compared with the same month of 2008 the index also rose by 9.0%.
Cyprus has high milk prices compared with other EU countries.