TEHRAN- The market of Persian Gulf littoral states is a good opportunity for Iran to export flowers and ornamental plants.

The export of flowers and ornamental plants has a great added value for the country, and if the flower producers have support from the government, they can take over the market of the Persian Gulf countries.

Iran has 17th place in the world in the production of flowers and ornamental plants, but it is ranked 107th in terms of export.

Every year, three billion flowers and ornamental plants are produced in the country, of which only 300 million are exported. 50 percent of the produced flowers are sold domestically and the rest is thrown away.

As stated by the chairman of the Flower Retailers' Association of Tehran, flowers and ornamental plants consumption per capita in Iran is 20, while the figure is 150 to 250 in the world.

“We must have mass production to reduce the price of flowers”, Gholam-Hossein Soltan-Mohammadi has stated.

According to him, to produce flowers and ornamental plants for export, it should be considered as an industry and the demands of target companies should be evaluated.

MA/MA