TEHRAN- Khorasan Razavi province, in the northeast of Iran, accounts for the lion’s share of rose export from the country, according to the chairman of the Iranian Rose Society.

Underlining that the majority of roses are exported from Khorasan Razavi, Mehdi Samangani said: “Rose is the strategic flower of Khorasan Razavi, because the main export of roses from Iran is done from this province.”

Currently, roses are one of the most popular flowers in the world and are at the top in terms of production.

The U.S., Britain, The Netherlands, Kenya, Colombia, Ecuador, South Africa, and India are the main producers of roses in the world.

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