Today I visited Sian Flowers, a leading Kenyan flower exporter based in Kitengela, Kajiado County to get acquainted with flower business.
Sian Flowers Directors Christopher Kulei (who is also the Chairman of the Kenya Flower Council) and Peter Cheserem showed me and my team of trade officers around the greenhouses, packing house, storage area and laboratory. The exporter grows, labels and packages roses and summer flowers for direct sale. Some flowers are also auctioned in the Netherlands.
Cut flowers are Kenya’s second largest export, bringing in $700 million annually. The newly signed Kenya-EU Economic Partnership Agreement ensures duty-free and duty-free access to the 27-country, €13 trillion EU market, and providing scope for export expansion.
Other destinations including the United Arab Emirates, India, Russia and several South-East Asian countries offer promising opportunities for further market diversification.
However, the sector faces a number of challenges that limit growth. These include stringent inspection measures linked to the False Coddling Moth, Lack of airfreight capacity and those available expensive, instability on the Red Sea route that has affected the use of maritime cargo as a mode of transport, and the high fee structure for export inspections which is currently being reviewed following consultation with industry