Himalayan News Service

Kathmandu, March 9:

Floriculture Association of Nepal (FAN), in order to boost floriculture business and promote people involved in flower business, is organising a Floriculture Trade Fair from March 12 to March 15.

Informing a press meet today, president of FAN, Minarwa Bista said that the fair will solely concentrate on boosting flower business which is scheduled to be organised at Bhrikuti Mandap exhibition ground from March 12. Bista informed that Queen Komal is scheduled to inaugurate the event.

A total of 50 stalls are being erected at the fair, where products such as seasonal flowers, decorative plants, packaging goods, fertilisers and pesticides, modern irrigation technology, landscape and models of green house will be displayed.

The fair will be highly beneficial to various people such as businesspersons involved in flower business, people interested to start a flower business and decorative flower making persons, said Bista. The organiser will also avail of new technologies and innovations seen in floriculture business during the event. With experience of over one decade, flower business in the country has shown that there is a huge potential in floriculture business as the number of nurseries has increased from 80 in 1993 to 250 currently.

Presently, the number of people involved in flower business has already reached to 54, due to increased interest of consumers, according to FAN. People both in the Kathmandu valley and outside, are involved in flower business. People have also started producing cut-flower business on a commercial scale. This can be seen, besides the valley, in Dhading, Chitwan, Kavre, Parsa, Rautahat, Sarlahi, Siraha, Dhanusha, Morang, Jhapa, Kaski and Tanahu.

During the time of establishment of FAN, annual transaction of flower was estimated at around Rs 10 million. Since then, there has been a huge increase in flower business which is now estimated to be over Rs 130 million that includes flower plants, seasonal flower plants and cut-flower, according to a 2002-03 report prepared by Trade Promotion Centre (TPC). The transaction of flower business is today estimated at around Rs 170 million, according to FAN.

Nepal has started exporting flowers to other parts of the globe such as USA, Japan, Australia, Netherlands and Norway. Flowers worth Rs 18.2 million has already been exported to these countries, says a report. Despite its tremendous potential, the government does not seem to have paid serious attention to this sector and formulated conducive policies.