Band 7+: The graph below gives information about the price of bananas in four countries between 1984 and 2004. Summarize the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.

The chart illustrates how much a kilogram of banana costs in Japan, France, Germany and the USA from 1994 to 2004.

Overall, banana prices fluctuated in all Nations, growing slightly in Japan and the USA, while the remaining nations recorded subtle decreases over the period. Japan indicated the most fluctuation and frequently observed the highest price, except in 2001, when its figure temporarily was surpassed by that of France. By contrast, the USA always offered the lowest banana price in most of the examined years.

In Japan, bananas initially were sold at nearly 2 dollars per kilogram, before rapidly becoming the most expensive one year later, at 3 dollars per kilogram. Thereafter, banana price hovered around 2 dollars until 2000, after which it hit a low of 1.5 dollars in 2001, lower than 1.7 dollars recorded in France that year for a short period. However, Japanese banana prices towards the end of the period recovered swiftly to 2.5 dollars in 2004, maintaining its position as the top-priced banana market.

France and Germany showed relatively similar trends, with the former regularly seeing the higher price. In France, its consumers subsequently paid 1.6 dollars per kilogram from 1994 to 1999, after which banana price declined to approximately 1.2 dollars in 2000, reaching parity with German’s figure for that year. The following two years observed a slight recovery; however, this increase was short-lived as French banana price peaked at a nadir of 1 dollars per kilogram, before rebounding to 1.5 dollars per kilogram in 2004. By comparison, banana price in Germany generally was nearly 2 dollars lower than that of France, ranging from 1.2 to 1.5 dollars per kilogram in 1994-2001 period, before remaining unchanged at 1.1 dollars between 2002 and 2004.

Finally, the USA was the only nation which witnessed minimal fluctuations in banana price. This country consistently experienced the lowest price, with bananas being sold at just 0.8 dollars per kilogram between 1994 and 1995, before jumping to 1.1 dollars and maintaining at this level until 2004.