September
2006
China’s flower industry
The fresh-cut rose importing business has long been a Miami story, with Colombia and Ecuador being the providers.
Recently, our company, WorldCity, focused one of its monthly Connections events on Africa, and learned of Africa’s increased interest in the fresh-cut flower business, something that we had written about in an earlier issue of WorldCity. Now, according to a New York Times story, China wants in on the act as well. (We had also reported on China’s nascent flower industry in that same article.)
Here’s a link to the New York Times story.
The basic points were that the industry, being developed in impoverished southwestern China, was being supported heavily from Beijing, with loans and infrastructure imporovements, and that China, not suprisingly, can undercut the cost on the global market significantly. In addition, the area where the industry is being developed is an entry point for heroin from Myanmar, and there is fear of Islamic fundamentalists becoming influential there as well.
Roses fly better than most flowers — carnations cannot be packed as tightly, for example — but do have a limited life. The most likely entry point is Los Angeles.
“Our plan is to become the biggest flower producer and exporter in Asia in 10 to 15 years,” and possibly the world’s largest after the Netherlands, the deputy chief of the Flower Association, a provincial government agency, told the New York Times.