Iran’s balance of trades for flower and ornamental plants in the past Iranian year (ended on March 20) remained positive amounting to some $11 million, which is expected to observe a significant growth this year, a senior official at the Ministry of Agriculture said.
According to the head of the Ministry of Agriculture’s Greenhouse, Medicinal Plants and Edible Mushroom Affairs Bureau, Gholamreza Taqavi, the country’s exports of flower plants, seedlings and bulbs amounted to $25 million last year, while the imports of floral products stood at around $14 million.
Taqavi noted that the recent fluctuations in the currency market and the huge gap between the prices of the domestically-produced and imported flowers have heated the domestic flower market.
Noting that the domestic market needs some 4 million cut flowers in a year, he added “previously, we needed to import some 60 million floral plants, seedlings, bulbs, but the number has been halved due to the increase in domestic production.”