Iran’s balance of trades for flower and ornamental plants in the past Iranian year (ended on March 20) remained positive amounting to some $11 million, which is expected to observe a significant growth this year, a senior official at the Ministry of Agriculture said.

According to the head of the Ministry of Agriculture’s Greenhouse, Medicinal Plants and Edible Mushroom Affairs Bureau, Gholamreza Taqavi, the country’s exports of flower plants, seedlings and bulbs amounted to $25 million last year, while the imports the floral products stood at around $14 million.

Taqavi noted that the recent fluctuations in the currency market and the huge gap between the prices of the domestically-produced and imported flowers have heated the domestic flower market.

Noting that domestic market needs some 4 million cut flowers in a year, he added “previously, we needed to import some 60 million floral plants, seedlings, bulbs, but the number has been halved due to the increase in domestic production.”

According to the official, over 2.5 billion cut flowers were harvested in the country in the first half of the current year (through Sep. 22).

Over 6,599 hectares of land are under the cultivation of ornamental plants and flowers in Iran, some 2,400 hectares of which belong to greenhouse cultivation while the remaining pertain to outdoor cultivation.

Noting that Iran ranks second globally in the expansion of greenhouse area, said plans are on the agenda to increase the share of Iranian green products in the foreign markets vial facilitating and outsourcing the exports. Iran is home to hardly 0.3% of the world’s greenhouses. / MNA/