Until August, the export turnover of flowers and plants from the Netherlands increased with over 2% to € 3.6 billion. The VGB export statistics show this number. With a plus of 4.3%, plants do better than cutting flowers (+1.3%).
After the first two quarters of the year, the export counter was rounded off to a 3% increase. Because the monthly turnover in July was lower than the annual mean, the increase dropped to 2.4%. Until now, a turnover of almost € 3.6 billion was realised: € 2.2 billion on cutting flowers and € 1.4 billion on flowers. VGB bases the monthly export statistics on the data of exporters Floridata collected.
Higher purchase costs
The purchase costs are higher than last year for both cutting flowers and potted plants / garden plants. ‘And that’s hard to charge on. And when you add the lower exchange rate to that, it’s clear the market stagnates’, says Henk Lamboo, CEO of Holland Indoor Plant to explain the 7.5% drop in July of the export from the Netherlands to England.
Cumulatively, the English backlog is now 2% in comparison with a very good year of 2015, and with an export turnover of € 568 million, it is still 15% higher than in 2014. ‘The value per flower has increased. And besides that, the price formation of flowers in particular experiences stronger fluctuations than in the past’, Remi van der Zwet, head purchase and sales of D. Visser and Zn. experiences.
Competitive position
The competitive position of Dutch exporters is quite firm on the international area, but is different per country. Harm Koningen from Hukra names the base of Sweden and the perspective quite favourable. The turnover development that Dutch exporters realised this year is average, and in turnover value just over € 100 million.
The increase on Italy is almost twice as high and was mainly realised on plants: + 4.7% on € 165 million. Distinctive is the above-average increase of the flower and plant export to the most important customer Germany. Until July, our eastern neighbours purchased 5% extra. That is the same increase percentage as the Euro countries in the top-10 purchasers until July. The export to non-Euro countries dropped with 2%.
Big differences
Because of the 15% increase in July, Belgium has become the largest growth market of the top-10 purchasers. The Russian market hardly showed up in July with a 45% record drop. Last year, Russia took the fourth position in the flower top 10, and the United States was ninth. The United States now passed Russia and is ranked eighth.
