Dounan’s multi-million dollar trade blooms
For every 10 flowers sold on Chinese Valentine’s Day last Friday, at least seven are from Dounan, a suburb in the provincial capital Kunming in southwest China’s Yunnan Province, with prices determined by a live auction.
From 3pm until late at night, the 900-seat trading hall is filled as the auction concerning cut flowers begins in the Kunming International Flora Auction Trading Center (KIFA) in Dounan, one of the largest of its kind in Asia. Florist Yuan Fuwang keeps a close eye on the trading screen where deals are made between flickers of numbers. Dealers either sigh or shout over the prices, waiting anxiously to sell their carefully planted beauties.
“I couldn’t be more concentrated. A deal is made every four seconds,” Yuan said.
For Chinese Valentine’s Day, about 48 million flowers worth more than 47 million yuan (US$6.8 million) are sold through KIFA, with roses accounting for more than 95 percent of the total.
Quality testing is the first step the flowers go through, which the center classifies into five grades. Buyers then check the flowers in person to select and record the ones they want.
Prices go up with the grades. “The annual average price of a Grade A flower was 1.43 yuan last year, about three times higher than that of a Grade D,” said Zhang Li, general manager of KIFA. “When buyers find an appropriate price, they press a button and the deal is closed.”
Florists can receive information about the buyers and the hammer price the same night and sellers will receive the money the next day. They have to seize every second to transport the flowers to guarantee the freshness.
Before dawn, trucks laden with fresh flowers rush into rural suburbs. With petals littering the floor of the warehouse, more than 500 kinds of about 10 million radiant beauties are on their way to cities across China as well as foreign countries such as Myanmar, Laos, Russia and Australia.
With low latitude and high elevation, Yunnan has one of the mildest climates in China, which has allowed the cultivation of a blooming floral market.
Since 1999, when Kunming established one of China’s biggest wholesale flower markets in Dounan, the suburb has been turned into the leading supplier of flowers across the country, and in recent years demands from overseas are fueled by the Belt and Road initiative.
The fast-growing trade between China and neighboring countries under the initiative has witnessed the sales of flowers entering a peak season helped by expanding international air links.
By the end of 2017, more than 12,000 households of over 400 florists cooperatives have registered with KIFA, with total flower farmland exceeding 2,600 hectares and an output value of about 450,000 yuan per hectare. Trade volume of KIFA has maintained double-digit growth, selling 6.53 billion cut flowers worth 5.4 billion yuan last year.
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