Hanoi (VNA) – Vietnamimported flowers and ornamental plants worth 18 million USD from December 1,2017 to January 31, 2018 for the Lunar New Year.

This was a sharp increase of 46.8 percent against last year, according to theGeneral Department of Customs.

The countries witnessing a high surge in export value of these products toVietnam included the Netherlands (up 76 percent to 5 million USD compared tobefore Tet last year) and China (up 80.8 percent to 3.6 million USD).

This year’s imported products included fresh flowers and living ornamentalplants reaching 7.9 million USD, accounting for 43.8 percent of the totalimport value. They included orchids, rhododendron, dumb cane plants andcedrus bonsai trees.

Of these, flowers and plants worth 3.3 million USD, including orchids reachingover 2 million USD, were imported from mainland China, while the imports fromTaiwan and Japan were worth 2.7 million USD and 1 million USD, respectively.

Vietnam imported flowers having tuberous plants worth 7.6 million USD,accounting for 42.1 percent of the total import value of flowers and ornamentalplants.

Lilies reached an import turnover of 4.4 million USD from the Netherlands, 1.1million USD from New Zealand and 1 million USD from France.

The General Department of Customs said flowers in the form of branches reachedan import value of 2.4 million USD, down slightly from 2.5 million USDbefore Tet last year.

Notably, fresh orchids imported from Thailand reached an import value of 2.2million USD.-VNA