The wholesale vegetable market witnessed a fall in the number of customers.
Traders at Doha’s Central Wholesale Market have cut prices of vegetables and fruits, with rains and cold weather keeping many customers away from the market, causing a fall in demand.
Local production has made it easy for the vendors to sell freshly harvested vegetables on the same day to the customers. However, the current weather conditions have resulted in less customers visiting market.
“Local vegetables include, cucumber, cabbage, green chilly, capsicum, tomato, egg plant, bitter gourd, pumpkin, beans, broccoli, green onions, and various leaves and herbs among the others. Cucumber which was sold for QR 15 for a carton (7 to 8 kg) earlier is now sold at QR 10 per box,” Dolal, a vendor at Central Market, told The Peninsula.
Cabbage weighing 5kg is sold for QR6 compared to QR12earlier, while a Broccoli box costs QR5, Capsicum at QR14, chilies for QR10 per box, Tomatoes sold at QR14 to QR 20 as per the weight of the box and herb bundles costs QR2.
“These vegetables are from farms in Doha, located in Al Khor and Al Shamal. We have to sell maximum quantity of fruits and vegetables by the end of the day, and so prices go down as the day ends. Now, due to rains customer are not visiting markets regularly, and since it is winter, we keep these fresh vegetable for two days,” he added. Meanwhile, the imported vegetables and fruits are more expensive.
“Cucumber from Saudi Arabia is sold for QR18 per box while a 10 kg bag of onion from Saudi Arabia is sold for QR10, and mint leaves carton costs QR 7. Whereas fruits price has reduced too, which includes 14 kg Philippines bananas box sold at QR 30, 5 kg grape fruit box is sold for QR 10 and 3kg Indian mangoes box costs QR25,” said Muhammad Jasim Salim, another vendor at Wholesale-Market.
Radha Badil, supplier of a company said,“ presently we are importing vegetables from Lebanon, Saudi Arab, and Jordan. Fruits are being imported by Egypt, India and South Africa. Most of the vegetables and fruits are being imported by Dubai as well. The turnout of customers at both the vegetable and fish markets are low. The morning weather conditions are not suitable for our regular customers to visit market. The market is packed on Saturdays and Thursdays.”
"It took me twenty minutes to reach to market today. I visit market regularly, but with the potholes and muddy conditions and also the cold weather is making it difficult to visit the market," said a female customer at the wholesale market.
