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TAIPEI, Taiwan -- The average iqf vegetable wholesale price in Taipei yesterday shot up 30 percent to NT$22.86 per kilogram due mainly to the supply shortfall caused by torrential rains in central and southern Taiwan, according to the Taipei Agricultural Products Marketing Co. (TAPM) TAPM statistics indicated that the daily vegetable supply at the Taipei wholesale market shrank by some 30 percent to 1,192 metric tons yesterday from 1,568 metric tons registered on Tuesday, as a result of the torrential rains in the central and southern counties of Changhua and Yunlin damaging some low-lying vegetable growing areas there. Such short-term leafy vegetables as spoon cabbage and water convolvulus saw their wholesale prices double to NT$34 and NT$35 per kilogram yesterday from Tuesday's NT$16 and NT$17, respectively. The wholesale prices of such leafy vegetables as cabbage, celery, amaranth surged by NT$6 to NT$14 per kilogram. Meanwhile, average fruit wholesale price rose by NT$10 per kilogram to NT$42.2 yesterday from NT$32.32 on Tuesday, due to a sharp decline in the daily supply to 695 metric tons from 1,063 metric tons at the Taipei wholesale market. TAPM officials forecast the prices both fruit and vegetables to rise further by 10 to 20 percent before the Dragon Boat Festival falling on Sunday. In related news, the Agriculture & Food Agency of the Council of Agriculture said yesterday that the agency will not release frozen vegetable products into the markets temporarily, so as not to undermine the interests of farmers. Officials with the agency said that the damage of torrential-caused floods on vegetable production in central and southern Taiwan was not so serious, and therefore there is no need for the agency to release frozen vegetable products. On another front, the average chicken wholesale price shot up 70 percent from a year earlier to NT$85 per kilogram in May from NT$49.42, and the pork price also surged 30 percent to NT$75.5 per kilogram.