Singapore: Chinese consumers are consuming more imported bananas than ever before as an increasingly health conscious middle class help propel the fruit's popularity.

Imports of bananas surged to a record 227,199 tonnes in May alone, according to China's general administration of customs. China imported 1.54 million tonnes of bananas in 2018, a 50 per cent surge from the year before, customs data shows.

That helped lift total shipments of fruits and nuts to 720,000 tonnes, an almost eight-fold increase from the same period last year.

Restrained by limited farmland and a destructive banana fungus known as the Panama disease, China has been increasing its reliance on supplies from Southeast Asia and South America. Demand for bananas is being encouraged by rising incomes and the increasing popularity of diets in China, including for use in smoothies and as banana chips.