Mooncakes at lower prices welcomed

High-end and over-priced mooncake gifts which were popular in the past years are losing out to more reasonably- priced mooncakes in this festive season, the Beijing Daily reported.

At supermarkets like Carrefour, Wal-Mart and CSF Market, most of the mooncake gift packets are priced between 100 yuan ($16) to 200 yuan. A staff member of one supermarket said that in previous years, more than 100 mooncake packets priced close to 1,000 yuan were sold daily ahead of the Mid-Autumn Festival.

A report from the Beijing Association of Bakery and Confectionery Industry predicts that mooncake gifts priced less than 200 yuan will take 90 percent of this year's market.

This is the second year that the government has banned all State-owned companies and government agencies from buying mooncakes as gifts.