YEREVAN. – The price of banana in Armenia has increased by 15 percent ahead of 2016, the Fire Monkey year, Haykakan Zhamanak daily reported.

“Any grounds for the price hike in bananas are completely missing. The problem is that in Russia, for example, bananas are getting cheaper day by day.

“It remains strictly confidential why the [Armenian] State Commission for the Protection of Economic Competition, the SCPEC, which lives on the account of the state budget—that is, on the account of us taxpayers—insistently is not interested in the banana market [in Armenia].

“There may be two alternatives here. Either this commission, which ‘roars’ during various public events, does not approach the banana market because it knows very well that it [i.e. Armenia’s banana market] is under the control of CESJO [i.e. the Armenian Justice Ministry’s Compulsory Enforcement Service of Judicial Orders] head Mihran Poghosyan, or it is convinced that in the coming Fire Monkey year, the people [in Armenia] shall eat ‘fiery bananas’ with fiery prices,” Haykakan Zhamanak wrote.