Commercial Floriculture

Orchids in trade and economy

• At present Orchid cut flower trade is a multi-million dollar business.
• The cut flowers of species like Cymbidium, Paphipedilum, Phalaenopsis, Cattleyas and Dendrobiums have a tremendous market in USA and Europe.
• It is estimated that two hundred million Cattleya flowers are sold annually in American market.
• Some of the developing countries like Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Sri Lanka are fast catching up the international market and run the cut flower industry on co-operative basis they pool the collections and export them to Europe, Japan and USA a few orchids figure prominently as State or National flowers. E.g. Cypripedium reginae by Minnesota and Cattleya skinneri by Cost Rica.
• Through commercial orchid cut flower nurseries provide under 3% of the world cut flowers they earn considerable foreign exchange profit for many countries.
• The Netherlands is the only European country with a sizeable orchid export industry.
• In 1993, the Netherlands exported 51.8 million stems of orchids valued at 77.4 million.
• Phalaenopsis orchids were the 14th most popular cut flowers sold in Dutch auctions in 1993 with sales exceeding 12.8 millions.
• More than 3,600 tons of Dendrobiums were sent to Europe in 1993 from Thailand and more from Singapore.
• Dendrobium orchids accounted for 3.2 million dollars of sales in Dutch auction market; but most were imported directly whole sale distributions in France, Germany, England and Italy.
• The largest importer of tropical cut orchids in Europe in Italy, importing about 21,43,425 kg in 1993 and 30,00,725 kg in 1996.
• Germany is the second largest importer of tropical orchids in Europe with 4,78,446 kg.
• The growth and popularity of orchids is gaining lot of importance in our country due to the high rate of return.

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