Success of horticulture expo mirrors industry’s blossoming production
BEIJING — The recently concluded International Horticultural Exhibition 2019 Beijing, which drew more than 9 million visits in 162 days, was a vivid reflection of China’s blooming floral industry.
Ye Dahua, deputy head of the expo’s coordination bureau, said the expo will be remembered for its many “rare plants and themed gardens”.
Of the more than 2 million plants on display, there were more than 20,000 new varieties and products. A large number of the plants were varieties with intellectual property rights, independently cultivated before being unveiled at the expo, Ye said.
“I remember at the 1999 International Horticultural Exposition held in Kunming, capital of Southwest China’s Yunnan province, phalaenopsis, or butterfly orchid, was still considered a novel species. But now it is a common household flower,” said Zhao Shiwei, chief engineer at the Beijing Academy of Landscape Architecture.
In the China pavilion at the Beijing expo, a 6-meter-high 3D ecological wall based on the scenery of Anji in East China’s Zhejiang province was arranged with plants, said Guo Jia, deputy head of the horticulture department of the bureau.
“Many flower arrangements at the Beijing expo were realized with new technologies in flowering regulation, vegetation selection and 3D greening,” Guo said.
The Kunming expo helped nurture flower consumption in China. The Beijing expo will boost innovation, research, trade and logistics in the industrial chain of the floral business to help China seek a stronger position in the world market.
China joined the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants in 1999. Since then, Chinese research institutes, flower enterprises and many breeders have been committed to the cultivation of new varieties. These range from chrysanthemum, rose, rhododendron to magnolia with patents obtained in the United States, the European Union and Japan, Zhao said.
At the expo, Scott Salter, chief scientist of Lynch Group, an Australian floral developer, said the company has more than 10 years of experience in China. It has witnessed the country’s floral market growth.
“When we first came to China, we only sold some rose species. But now we sell dozens of varieties of floral plants,” Salter said. “Every day we see new customers here. The market potential is huge.”
Beijing Green Garden Group was the main supplier of floral exhibits at this year’s expo.
Lin Qiaoling, board chairwoman of the company, said that over the past decade the company’s business has expanded from flower sales to providing customized flower arrangements.
The company’s flower output value has increased from less than 6 million yuan ($847,320) in 2011 to 360 million yuan in 2018, she said.
China has become the world’s biggest flower-producing country as well as an important flower consumer and trader, according to Jiang Zehui, president of the China Flower Association. In 2018, China had a flower cultivation area of 1.63 million hectares.
The fast development of China’s e-commerce and courier sectors has boosted fresh flower consumption. During Valentine’s Day this year, China’s online retailing platform Taobao saw flower orders jump 69 percent year-on-year.
About 500,000 fresh-cut roses, tulips and other flowers grown in Yunnan were sold.
The expo site, which covers an area of 503 hectares in Beijing’s northern district of Yanqing, will be used as an education base of ecological culture, according to Zhou Jianping, executive deputy director of the expo’s coordination bureau.