Da Lat to open flower trading centre

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The centre will be set up at the bottom of Mimosa Pass, a gateway to Da Lat, on an area of 16.6 ha with a maximum purchasing capacity of 2.5 million branches a day and is expected to trade 550 million flower branches a year.

The facility, once operational in the next two years, will serve as a trading platform for flower farmers and consuming units to supply flowers to markets with transparent prices.

Flowers are expected to be auctioned before reaching the retail market.

The trading centre is important to create an open and transparent market as well as standards for local flowers, said Ryoji Kato of the OTA Floriculture Auction.

To date, Lam Dong province had a total flower growing area of 7,760 ha with an annual output of more than 2.4 billion flower branches, of which Da Lat and its neighbourhood making up 70% of acreage and production.

Da Lat has built a common brand of Da Lat Flower used by about 110 grower households. Earnings from the local floriculture sector currently reach VND750 million per hectare a year.

OTA Floriculture Auction is a leading company operating the OTA wholesale market for flowers in Tokyo which is the largest in Japan and the third largest in the world.