A recent substantial price hike for newspapers brought over to Bermuda from the UK has shocked customers shopping at stores throughout the Island. One man who contacted yesterday said: "I have the on order (and) the price has been $6.45. I picked it up yesterday and was informed the price had jumped to $10.95." The newspaper costs ?1.40 pence in England.

A spokeswoman for the Phoenix Group, which supplies its network of stores as well as a number of other retail outlets with the English newspapers, said that the price jump was a result of changes in exchange rates over the last 12 months.

"The prices were actually increased two months ago," she said. "Basically there was a movement in the exchange rate and we had not adjusted our prices. We were selling the newspapers at a loss for a short while so we had no choice but to raise the prices on them. I appreciate it's a substantial increase, but with the exchange rate moving from $1.50 to $1.85 and the costs of bringing the papers in by air ? and they are very heavy ? we had to put the prices up."

Asked whether the price increase had impacted sales of the newspapers she said: "It doesn't seem to have had an effect on sales, not anything substantial that I know of."

She added that if the British pound weakens resulting in a more favourable exchange rate bringing the prices of the English newspapers back down was "something that we could look into."