Financial Tribune- Iran is the world’s 10th biggest producer of flower and plants, though the country has only a 0.3% share in global export markets, making it the 107th flower exporter, the head of Iran’s Flowers and Plants Union said.

Mehdi Sharifi believes the country’s meager share in export markets is rooted in poor standards, high production costs and lack of mechanization, IRNA reported. According to the official, Iran’s ornamental flower and plant industry has a turnover of over 110 trillion rials ($2.26 billion) per year.

In an earlier interview with Financial Tribune, director general of the Agriculture Ministry’s Greenhouses, Medicinal Plants and Edible Mushrooms Affairs Office, Gholamreza Taqavi, said Iran produced 3.31 billion stems of flower and ornamental plants in the last fiscal year (March 2016-17), registering a 41% increase compared with the year before.

Some 2.5 billion cut flowers were harvested in the country last year. Taqavi noted that 6,567 hectares of land are under the cultivation of ornamental plants and flowers in Iran, 2,391 hectares of which belong to greenhouse cultivation while the remaining 4,176 hectares are under outdoor cultivation.