Rs 300 crore fall likely in floriculture exports by 2010: Assocham

New Delhi, Aug 20 (UNI) The country's floriculture exports are expected to be around Rs 700 crore by end of 2010 against earlier projection of Rs 1,000 crore, said an industry chamber.

This, industry chamber Assocham said, is due unaddressed issues such as infrastructure, good plant material, production technology, availability of basic inputs, and lack of cold storage facilities to handle such exports.

The value of exports of floriculture products from India was Rs 212.70 crore in 2004-05 which went up to Rs 305 crore in 2005-06 and further escalated at Rs 390 crore in the previous fiscal.

In 2007-08, their exports are likely to be around Rs 500 crore which by 2010 could go up to Rs 700 crore against the targeted levels of Rs 1,000 crore, points out Assocham estimates.

The five agri-export zones have also been set up in states such as Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Uttaranchal, Karnataka and Maharashtra, Karnataka continues to contribute 75 per cent of flori production without significantly enhancing to export quality floriculture, the industry body said.

As a result of which, India's contribution to world flower trade of about 12 billion dollars remains to be much below the potential, added the Assocham's findings.

Besides, setting up of cold storage and cargo handling facilities at key airports such as New Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Banglore, Chennai, Trivandrum and Coachin are still under active consideration of the government and prove to be inadequate to take floriculture exports to the desired direction, said Assocham President Venugopal N Dhoot.

The key issues that need to be addressed are economies of scale, product range, incorporation of latest varieties and quality control and certification, besides creation of effective cold chain management, said the industry body.

Bottlenecks like inadequate infrastructure, inappropriate plant material and good production technology and non-availability of basic inputs would have to be removed and promotion activities of flori products exports would have to be taken at war footings, said Mr Dhoot.

For boosting its floriculture export, the country should go in for potential export items like cut flowers, dry flowers, seeds potted plants and micropropagated plantlets. Intensive mobilisation of resources should be left on those that are engaged in such exports with financial institutions allowed to come forward for flori exporters.

The Assocham chief said, efforts like setting up of export promotion council, establishment of appropriate marketing and distribution channels, abolition of import duty on inputs and reduction in existing airfreight tariff structure are also called for to promote flori export particularly to countries like Netherlands, Germany, France, Italy and Japan.

In India, floriculture industry comprises flower trade, production of nursery plants and potted plants, seed and bulb production, micro propagation and extraction of essential oils.

Though the annual domestic demand for the flowers is growing at a rate of over 25 per cent and international demand at around Rs 90,000 crore, India's share in the international market of flowers is negligible, the chamber said.

India has a blooming future as far as floriculture is concerned.

Enormous genetic diversity, varied agro climatic conditions, versatile human resources, etc, offer India a unique scope for judicious employment of existing resources and exploration of avenues yet untouched, Assocham added.

As per estimates, the per capita consumption of the flowers is the maximum in Norway (146 dollars) followed by Switzerland (126 dollars) and Germany (88 dollars), though the maximum consumption of flowers is in the USA (12,500 million dollars), Japan ( 5,465 million dollars) and Italy (4,270 million dollars).

Though the floriculture industry has been the monopoly of a few western countries, mainly the Netherlands, the largest trader of floricultural products, with a lion's share of 70 per cent followed by Columbia and Israel with 12 per cent and six per cent share of the global floriculture trade. India's share is around 30 million dollars which is only 0.3 per cent.

Since the production in the traditionally recognised centres - the Netherlands and the USA - have reached the threshold level, the developing countries such as Columbia, Israel, South Africa and Kenya have emerged as additional production centers in the past few decades.

They export their floricultural produce to the USA and European countries. Most of the flowers are grown under protected conditions in covered structures like green houses and poly/glass houses in European and other countries. Due to intense cold, high energy cost, production in these countries is limited during winter months.

Thus they have to depend largely on import to meet their domestic demand as most of the festivals fall during this period when the demand of flowers is at its peak.

Hence, the prospects are good for new entrants like India in this trade.

UNI