KUNMING, China, Jan. 13, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- On January 7, the launch ceremony of the 21st Kunming International Flower Expo of China (KIFE) was successfully held in China's 'City of Eternal Spring' - Kunming. The Netherlands, the world's largest exporter of flowers, was officially announced to be the Guest Country of Honor at the event.
Together with Africa's Kenya and Ethiopia, and South America's Colombia and Ecuador, China's Yunnan province, the most important flower producing base in Asia, is one of the world's three regions most suitable for flower production. With much of the recent success attributable to the implementation of the Chinese government's Belt and Road initiative, over the last few years China's floral market has maintained its growth trend. Thanks to its unique location, superior natural conditions, abundant species resources, less restrictive logistics and prominent product advantages, Yunnan is able to meet the consistently increasing demands for flowers from developing countries in and around Southeast Asia, offering unprecedented opportunities for the province's floral industry.
The flourishing floral industry also drives the development of producers in Yunnan. The province is now home to over 6,000 flower producers that planted flowers on 99,600 hectares with a total output of 6.26 billion freshly cut flowers and with output value amounting to 31.3 billion yuan (approx. US$4.49 billion) during the first half of 2019.
Under the trend of floral industry upgrading, an ever growing number of companies are willing to attend the expo, and are eager to collaborate with domestic and foreign companies and scientific research institutions, buy advanced equipment that meet international standards, and expand R&D and application of new varieties of flowers. Last July, the 50,000sqm KIFE 2019 gathered together over 400 leading floral companies from 18 countries and 20,370 professional visitors from 28 countries.