Floral sector blossoms as demand sprouts

The abundant succulents have attracted a lot of young people to sell the plants via online platforms. To provide people a place to do so, the county has built a livestreaming and e-commerce industrial park.

The annual turnover of flowers via e-commerce has reached 3.6 billion yuan.

A warehouse that covers 6,000 square meters has been built to store flowers specifically for e-commerce orders.

In the warehouse, butterfly orchids, succulents, lilies and other fresh flowers are placed in separate regions. Workers skillfully sort and package the flowers.

Enterprises can focus on selling their flowers and the warehouse is in charge of following procedures including packaging and delivery, said Dong Ming, director of the park.

Overseas opportunities

Liu, who studied in Ireland for four years before returning to Qingzhou to run the succulent plant business, said his products have been sold to several countries and regions including Southeast Asia, the United States and Japan.

He is searching for an appropriate place in Europe to build a production and trade base for succulents.

Zheng, deputy director of Qingzhou's flower industry development service center, said the county is building a greenhouse in Russia to raise flowers. The county will also build a greenhouse in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region to tap the markets in countries along the Belt and Road Initiative.

In Heze, the peony-growing base, peony businesses sent fresh peonies to Los Angeles, California, in April by air.

"The local government has organized relevant departments such as Customs and airline operators to open green channels for the fresh peony business, which has shortened the transportation time from Heze to Los Angeles to 48 hours from five days," said Zhao Xiangkun, a peony business owner in Heze, adding this has not only saved costs but also ensured the freshness of cut flowers.

Zhao said this year's exports of fresh peonies to Los Angeles is a trial for expanding to overseas markets, but there is a long way to go before achieving large-scale exports.