Egypt’s 92nd annual Spring Flowers Exhibition (SFE) is seeing the participation of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) for the first time this year in a step meant to transform the exhibition into an international showcase starting next year.
The SFE is being hosted at the Agricultural Museum in Dokki, the second-oldest museum of its kind in the world. Until 2022, the SFE was organised at the Orman Botanical Garden in Giza.
The FAO’s participation in the SFE is lending hope to workers in the ornamental horticulture sector, as well as floriculture and landscape horticulture enthusiasts, that Egypt’s share in this global industry, with an estimated market value exceeding $39 billion, can grow, especially given the country’s favourable climate and abundant human capital.
At the same time, the government and private sector are in favour of supporting initiatives to expand contract farming, particularly for high-value export crops such as flowers and aromatic plants.
Farmers are being encouraged to move in this direction through incentives, forging connections with international exporters and marketing firms and introducing new and globally sought-after varieties.
The SFE, an important platform to promote Egypt’s botanical varieties and exhibit their quality, can attract international investors and buyers, especially if it connects local producers with foreign organisations such as embassies and trade offices and if business meetings are organised on the sidelines of the exhibition.
Ahmed Helal, an ornamental plant exporter and exhibitor, said the SFE has a popular character and is a cherished destination expressive of springtime celebrations and an opportunity for producers to make sales. However, despite being held for over 90 years, there is still a disconnect between professional international exhibitions and Egypt’s SFE, he added.
International exhibitions targeting producers and exporters operate on a different model, being organised through partnerships between the private sector and the government, with objectives that extend beyond profits, Helal explained. Their primary focus lies in facilitating business meetings, workshops, and seminars to highlight export prospects, production capacities, and opportunities for partnerships.
These objectives are different from those at popular exhibitions where it is impractical to showcase the high-end premium products that are typically sought after by large-scale buyers such as hotel chains, tourist resorts, real-estate developers interested in landscaping, hospitals, medical complexes, and museums, he noted.
Egypt has fewer than 100 producers and exporters of ornamental plants and flowers. Yet, in recent years they have made progress in the production and export of ornamental seedlings. This means the hard part is over, Helal said, since it takes four to five years to produce these seedlings, and this has already been achieved.
The sector is especially promising given the high demand in Gulf markets such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE, he added, pointing out that the market value of a single container of ornamental plants is 10 times that of a container of exported fruit and vegetables.
Countries such as the Netherlands and Thailand have built a substantial portion of their export economies around ornamental plants and flowers. Certain provinces in China rely heavily on this sector as a cornerstone of their local economies, he stated.
Another exhibitor, Walid Magran, suggested that the SFE should include dedicated halls for ornamental plant producers, landscape specialists, rose cultivators, and tropical fruit producers like himself.
Each of these sectors has different economic, financial, and marketing requirements, he said. Transforming the exhibition into a more specialised event could help to develop these crops, expand their export potential, and bolster their competitiveness.
Magran pointed to the growing domestic appetite for tropical fruit, with local production satisfying demand and driving prices down by 20 per cent compared to imported alternatives. Last year, dragon fruit and passion fruit were incorporated into Egypt’s agricultural export portfolio.
He sees promising opportunities both for export and domestic markets, especially as expanded local cultivation reduces production costs and increases exports, bringing in vital foreign-currency revenues.
Egypt’s greatest competitive edge in tropical fruit production lies in its geographical advantage. Its resemblance to other climatic zones allows for the cultivation of species typical of Thailand, Indonesia, and India, as well as those native to Latin America, Magran said.
Egypt’s cut-flower exports surged in 2023 to over $12 million, despite the total cultivated area for ornamental plants remaining under 13,000 feddans and exports being confined to a handful of Arab markets.
Meanwhile, the horticulture export sector is facing a host of challenges, including the limited cultivation of globally in-demand species, underdeveloped cold-chain logistics for rapid transport, especially to distant destinations, and climate change impacts on flowering cycles and product quality.
Some European markets also have stringent phytosanitary regulations that demand rigorous technical oversight. Egypt is not particularly strong in this field when it comes to trade promotion and participation in specialised global exhibitions.
Mohamed Al-Mansi, head of agricultural quarantine at the Ministry of Agriculture, said that agricultural quarantine contributes to enhancing the quality of Egypt’s agricultural exports by ensuring they are free from pests and meet the stringent technical standards of the importing countries.
The application of tracking and monitoring systems boosts Egypt’s reputation as an exporter committed to global phytosanitary standards, helping open new markets and increase competitiveness, he said.
According to the Export Council for Agricultural Crops, only five per cent of Egypt’s medicinal, aromatic, and ornamental plants were consumed domestically during the 2022-23 fiscal year, with the remaining being exported.
Sameh Fadl, a producer and exporter of ornamental seedlings, said that Turkey and China are Egypt’s primary regional competitors in the ornamental seedlings export market. However, Egyptian exports to the Gulf countries have a competitive edge due to favourable logistics — proximity via both sea and land routes — and competitive pricing.
Transactions are often settled in Egyptian pounds rather than US dollars, yielding greater financial returns for Gulf importers through advantageous currency-exchange rates.
Egypt’s ornamental plants also have another advantage: adaptability. Unlike Turkish and Chinese plants, which are cultivated in cooler climates, Egyptian plants have higher resilience and acclimatisation to the Gulf environment, owing to climatic similarities.
Although the export prospects are substantial, with market growth rates nearing 30 per cent annually, particularly amid ongoing urban development projects in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar, the sector is not receiving support, especially when it comes to production inputs such as fertilisers, pesticides, disinfectants, and lightweight soils.
This can compromise plant quality, due to the restricted use of fertilisers and extended irrigation intervals. Transportation costs, whether by land or sea, can also exert pressure on export pricing.
According to a report by the Trend Economy website, Egypt came in 31st globally in cut-flower exports, to a value of $12.4 million, in 2023, an increase of 397 per cent compared to 2022 when exports stood at $2.49 million. They accounted for 0.029 per cent of Egypt’s total exports.
In 2023, Libya imported 77 per cent of Egypt’s exported ornamental plants, buying $9.64 million worth of cut flowers, followed by Saudi Arabia with $1.2 million (9.68 per cent), Kuwait with $516,000 (4.16 per cent), and smaller shares going to Algeria, the UAE, Tunisia, Mali, Vietnam, the US, and Jordan.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 8 May, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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