Bangladesh can earn $500m exporting flowers: Razzque

Staff Reporter :
Bangladesh has potentials of earning $500 million per year through exporting flowers as the demand for the item is growing across the world.

Currently, the size of the international flower market is around $36 billion and it is expanding gradually.

However, the export of the cut flower and foliage from Bangladesh still remains at a minimum level as the country earns around $3.98 million in the outgoing fiscal year.

But, the rising income of the middle-class people along with rapid socioeconomic development helped boost flower and foliage business in the country.

Speaking at a launching ceremony of a wholesale flower market and processing centre in the capital on Saturday, Agriculture Minister Dr Abdur Razzque said, “Flower cultivation for commercial purpose is growing faster in the country as demand for it increasing in locally and internationally.”

“We have a potential of export earnings from flower worth $500 annually and we will have to achieve it,” the Minister said.

“We must introduce modern technology, supply of quality seeds, and set up of some warehouses and cold storages to increase the flower production and tap export potentiality,” the Minister said.

Claiming that both the domestic and international markets were expanding, Dr Razzaque said, “We are encouraging the farmers in modern flower and foliage cultivation to tap external markets.”

According to a study carried out by the state-run Hortex Foundation, annual turnover of the country’s flower and foliage industry increased to Tk 15 billion in FY’18 from about Tk 2.0 billion a decade back.

Horticulture Wing of the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) data showed that flower production surpassed 3.2 billion pieces in FY’18 from 3.0 billion in FY’17 and 2.98 billion in FY’16.

Around 2,250 hectares of land were brought under flower cultivation in FY’16 and the area increased to 2,280 hectares in FY’18, the DAE data showed.