Horticulture exports cross Sh100bn mark for first time

Horticultural exports are Kenya’s latest foreign exchange earner to cross the Sh100 billion mark, bursting into the league of tea, tourism and diaspora remittances.

Official data indicates that dollars brought in by vegetable, flower and fruit exports rose 12 per cent over last year’s earnings to hit Sh101.51billion by lend of December.

Apart from tourism which has been pulled down by recent insecurity cases, the rest of top foreign exchange earners are looking up with tea having fetched Sh124.5 billion last year and diaspora remittances fast edging towards the Sh200 billion.

Provisional data released by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) shows that growth in volumes and a weaker shilling combined to deliver the positive export results despite uncertainty over future access to Europe.

“Overall production was high and good amount of flowers were available in the market where prices were higher compared to last year,” said Bobby Kamani, the managing director of Primarosa flowers—a cut flower producer in Athi River that brought 100 million roses to the market last year.

Kenya exported a total of 133,658.3 tonnes of cut flower, earning Sh70.8 billion or 70 per cent of the 2016 horticultural earnings.

The volume of cut flower sold over the period was 8.8 per cent higher than the 122,825.3 tonnes exported the previous year.

“We haven’t quite sychronised the international statistics with our own numbers, but generally, there was scarcity of flower in the international market last year,” said Mrs Jane Ngige, chief executive of the Kenya Flower Council.

“Prices were good and as a result, we increased our volumes to meet the demand in the international market.”

Kenya exports the bulk of its blooms to the European Union (EU), But Mr Kamani said demand from from countries like the US and Australia grew.

Exporters have faced uncertainty from last year as the EU moved to block their access to its market over failure by East African states to ratify the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA). 

Kenya was later reinstated to the list of duty and quota free exporters after it teamed up with Rwanda to sign the EPA.

The EAC heads of state are expected to give their final word on EPA in April.

“The fact that EU reinstated Kenya to the duty free list itself raised business confidence as we saw a number of importers accepting to sign long- term flower orders,” said Mrs Ngige.

The KNBS data show that vegetables fetched Sh23.4 billion, a 12 per cent increase over the 2015 sales level after export volumes increased by 10,000 units to 78,791 tonnes over the period.

The rest of the dollars, worth Sh7.3 billion, or a Sh756 million improvement over the 2015 performance, was netted by export of fruits after volumes increased by about 2,500 units to hit a December 31 level of 48,657.8 tonnes.

The shilling traded in a range of between 100.7 and 102.3 to the dollar last year compared to 90.7 and 103.4 in 2015.