According to a spokesman for the trade group Po Sau Tong Ginseng and Antler Association Hong Kong Ltd.
Six hundred grams (21 ounces) of Korean red ginseng can cost up to 15,750 Hong Kong dollars (2,038 US), compared with about 60 to 80 dollars for the same amount of Chinese ginseng .
American ginseng sells from 600 dollars to 1,200 dollars for 600 grams, compared with 80 dollars to 100 dollars for Chinese ginseng .
The majority of Hong Kong ginseng consumers are aged 12-40, and male customers consume 70 percent of all ginseng products sold here, AMI said, adding that the root is renowned as an aid to virility. Ginseng products include candy, wine and cosmetics.
Perhaps most surprising is that growing numbers of young people are using ginseng , in any form from sliced roots to ginseng powders, to strengthen their immune systems, it said.
Exporters have been promoting ginseng here with samples taste tests in supermarkets and at health food exhibitions. American ginseng is promoted and endorsed by the Ginseng Board of Wisconsin, which spends about five to six million dollars a year on television, radio and posters in Hong Kong. The Board has even created recipes for ginseng soup.
There are about 15 ginseng importers and 50 distributors, in the Hong Kong neighborhood of Western. The margins for these middle-men and for retailers are generous, with middlemen doubling the price they paid, 400 dollars a kilogram (2.2 pounds), before they pass the ginseng on to retailers, who then hike the price another 40 percent.
According to archaeological evidence, the Chinese have been using ginseng for 3,000 years, the official Chinese news agency Xinhua said last month, adding that that was 500 to 1,000 years earlier than previously thought.
SOURCE : Agence France-Presse
1996. 02.
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