Colombia races to meet Valentine's Day rose demand

Yahoo – AFP, Alina Dieste, 12 Feb 2015

Workers prepare roses for export at a farm in Nemocon, Cundinamarca

department, Colombia on February 2, 2015 (AFP Photo/Eitan Abramovich)

Nemocon (Colombia) (AFP) - Work is hectic these days for El Redil, as the flower company based in the savanna surrounding the Colombian capital Bogota hurries to meet orders from all over the world for Valentine's Day.

"If you don't do well in Valentine's it's a lost year," said manager Fernando Arenas during an AFP tour of the fragrant-smelling rose farms in the town of Nemocon.

A worker selects flowers at a farm in 

Nemocon, Cundinamarca department,

 Colombia on February 2, 2015 (AFP

Photo/Eitan Abramovich)

"We want to take three million stems from this farm," added Arenas, as he walked through the company's greenhouses, while busy women in leather gloves clipped roses of all colors.

Dozens of workers dethorn the roses, classify them and transfer the flowers to wire racks, as well as prepare attractive bouquets that they hope will make someone's Valentine's Day.

The flowers are shipped fresh to people thousands of miles away and kept cold throughout their journey. Refrigerated trucks take the flowers to an airport in Colombia and from there they go to the rest of the world.

Miami and Amsterdam are the two main global distribution points.

Yellow roses are popular among young people, lilacs are preferred by the Japanese, but mostly the classic red are the roses chosen for Valentine's Day, the El Redil staff said.

The popular rose of the time "is a matter of fashion," said Arenas.

Colombia -- the world's second-largest flower exporter after the Netherlands -- ships up to 1,000 different types of flower, including exotic orchids, but the rose is the undisputed queen.

Colombia is celebrating its 50th anniversary of the flower export business, and helping its rise to the top is the role of the United States market as its star client.

Workers prepare roses for export at a

farm in Nemocon, Cundinamarca

department, Colombia on February 2,

2015 (AFP Photo/Eitan Abramovich)

The United States makes up about 75 percent of the Latin American country's sales, followed by Russia, Japan and Britain, according to Asocolflores, the group that brings together most flower producers in Colombia.

Arenas said the last Valentine's Day flower shipment was scheduled for February 9, but the weather can play havoc: 2010 was a black year for sales after a freeze destroyed crops, he said.

Cupid cash

Valentine's Day represents 12 percent of annual flower sales in Colombia.

Colombia's $1.34 billion in annual flower exports puts the country second to the Netherlands and ahead of Ecuador and Kenya.

Colombia's tropical climate helps it compete. The country can send shipments not only for Valentine's Day but for most major celebrations, including holidays in Russia, Spain and Japan, all year round.

The industry generates some 130,000 direct and indirect jobs, or about 15 people per acre -- seven times more than coffee plantations.

Workers prepare roses at a farm in Nemocon, Cundinamarca department,

Colombia on February 2, 2015 (AFP Photo/Eitan Abramovich)

Colombia's flower business, while booming, has had to confront numerous challenges: attracting workers for the manual labor can be difficult, and so is competing with lower labor costs in Africa.

"Water scarcity, lack of sun, snow preventing on-time production, all of that affects the sector," president of Asocolflores, Augusto Solano, told AFP.

The organization claims those difficulties have led to a decreasing profit margin over the years.

"I wish it was the month of Valentine's, not just the day," a rueful Solano said.

Brazil to expand agricultural exports to China: minister

Want China Times, Xinhua 2015-02-03

Workers harvest coffee beans in Brazil. (File photo/Xinhua)

Brazil plans to expand exports to China, as the Chinese market is vital to the growth of its agricultural sector, a minister said.

Katia Abreu, the new agriculture minister stressed at a recent press conference the importance of channeling Chinese investment to Brazil's agricultural sector.

Abreu, who is also president of the National Confederation of Agriculture, said Brazil and China should expand cooperation in the agricultural sector by not only boosting direct trade but exchanging more high value-added products.

"We need to sign more trade agreements with China. This desire is very strong for us," said Abreu.

To further explore the Chinese market, Abreu will visit China in March this year, aiming to cut China's import tariff on Brazilian coffee and convince Chinese authorities to accept Brazilian health inspection standards for Brazil's meat industry.

According to the Brazilian Agriculture Ministry, beef exports to China are expected to increase significantly, with exports to China rising from 37 million U.S. dollars in 2012 to at least 700 million dollars in 2015.

Following an atypical case of mad cow disease in Brazil, China suspended Brazilian beef imports in 2012 and lifted the embargo last year.

China is currently the largest importer of agricultural products of Brazil, representing 22% of the South American nation's total agricultural exports in 2014 and more than the total amount of its second to fifth largest export destinations, namely the United States, The Netherlands, Russia and Germany.

Brazil is an agricultural powerhouse, whose total volume of agricultural production in 2014 accounts for 22.5% of the GDP.

It is also the world's biggest producer and exporter of coffee, sugar and orange juice, the biggest meat exporter and the second-biggest producer and exporter of soy products, as well as a major grower of corn.

On coffee exports, Abreu said, "Brazilian coffee is vigorously promoting its brand worldwide and expanding its awareness. I hope that more Chinese can drink Brazilian coffee."

Cuban cigars get shorter to counter anti-smoking laws

Google – AFP, Francisco Jara (AFP), 25 February 2014

Habanos SA president, Spanish Luis Sanchez Harguindey, looks on during

 an interview with AFP, on February 24, 2014, during the XVI Havana Cigar Festival

in Havana (AFP/File, Yamil Lage)

Havana — Shorter cigars that can be savored more quickly are Cuba's strategic response to global anti-tobacco campaigns.

"With restrictions around the world on where one can smoke, the logical answer is to provide the enjoyment of intense flavor in less time," Luis Sanchez-Harguindey, the co-president of Habanos SA, told AFP.

"Today's trend is to provide cigars to consumers that have a larger caliber but are shorter precisely so they can be smoked more quickly," the Spaniard said in an interview on the sidelines of Havana's annual cigar festival.

Habanos SA is a joint venture between Cuban state company Cubatabaco and the Franco-Spanish Altadis that was bought in 2008 by the British Imperial Tobacco Group.

One of the stars of the festival is one such new smoke -- the Partagas D6 -- that measures just 9 centimeters (3.5 inches) in length. In contrast, the longest Havanas can traditionally be more than twice that long.

Puffing on the new product takes about 15 minutes, according to Habanos SA.

Younger consumers and women increasingly are being targeted with milder, more refined flavors.

"There are other brands, like Hoyo de Monterrey, that allow for the introduction of more delicate flavors, more meant for young people," said Sanchez-Harguindey, a non-smoker who took to cigars when he arrived in Cuba in 1998 while working for a foreign bank.

"Traditionally, the cigar smoker is a man who is middle aged or older, especially because of the price of cigars," he added. "The most expensive products, like the Cohiba, aren't in everyone's reach."

A brand's image is also very important, according to Sanchez-Harguindey.

"We're seeing in our marketing studies that the average age of a Havana smoker is falling and that the number of women smokers is on the rise" even though they still only represent five percent of consumers, he added.

Sanchez-Harguindey expressed confidence Cuban cigars will remain a "globally unique product" thanks to the Caribbean country's climate, earth and centuries-old tobacco culture.

Tobacco is one of Cuba's top exports, behind nickel and biotech products.

On Monday, Habanos SA announced that Cuban cigar sales were up eight percent in 2013, reaching $447 million.

While Europe remained the top taker of the famous smokes, the greatest gains were seen in China.

Country-specific, the main markets for Havanas are Spain, France, China, Germany, Switzerland, Cuba, Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates, it said.

But Habanos SA faces a significant hurdle: It is unable to access the biggest global cigar market, the United States, due to an economic embargo imposed by Washington more than a half-century ago on communist Cuba.

As in years past, the 16th Havana Festival, featuring tours of tobacco plantations and cigar factories, culminates Friday with a gala dinner.

Related Article:

US bans bidis made by Indian tobacco company

Doctors reap in billions as Cuba's top export

Google – AFP, Carlos Batista (AFP), 19 June 2013

Cuban doctor Abel Barrios (L) waits for patients in the village of San Mateo,

in Antigua, Guatemala on February 12, 2009 (AFP/File, Eitan Abramovich)

HAVANA — Cuba is out to boost its top export, an ever-more critical pillar of its economy. And it's not sugar: hired-out Cuban doctors earn the Communist government over six billion dollars a year.

Medical services exports "are now the leading source of hard-currency income for the nation, and have great potential to keep growing," Foreign Trade Minister Rodrigo Malmierca said at a recent event.

About 40,000 Cubans doctors are working on contracts in 66 countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

The next big-ticket client could be Brazil -- the booming South American giant is considering hiring 6,000 Cuban doctors to help cover its health care staff shortage.

It may be somewhat surprising that Cuba -- once known for its exports like sugar, cigars, citrus fruits and rum -- now has four main pillars of its state-controlled economy.

A Cuban doctor (R) checks a group of

 men at a senior home on April 19, 2012

in Havana (AFP/File)

Only one -- nickel -- is a traditional commodity, bringing in $1.1 billion a year as the country's fourth most important import. But in this nation of endless white beaches, nickel is still less than half as significant as tourism, which brings in $2.5 billion a year into government coffers.

Impressively, in a Caribbean country of just 11 million people, remittances -- money sent by relatives abroad -- also end up giving $2.5 billion to the Cuban government. Why? Because their family members here spend it mostly at stores owned by the government.

Each of those big-ticket, hard-currency spinners however pales in comparison to the whopping $6 billion Cuba earns each year in exporting professional services -- sports trainers, teachers and especially doctors -- on overseas contracts.

At home, doctors earn between $25 and $41 dollars each month, and they are not allowed to leave Cuba at will.

If they were to head to the nearby US state of Florida, where Cubans can work legally just after arrival, they could earn a physician's salary of $150,000 per year or more.

Private mechanics, waiters at restaurants catering to tourists, and even hairdressers can earn far more than do highly-trained doctors in Cuba, making overseas medical missions appealing to this country's doctors.

The Cuban government acts as a middleman in the transactions, hiring out their medical staff to foreign countries.

The amounts Havana charges for the services of their workers are not made public, but payment, in hard currency, is for significantly more than what the doctors are paid personally. 

The government keeps the difference between its contracting price and what it pays the Cuban worker monthly.

It's a big business that is getting bigger: Havana has said it wants to increase the number of countries paying to import Cuban doctors. In a nation proud of its public health tradition, it also is charity in some cases: Cuba gives doctors' services to 40 countries that cannot afford to pay for them for free.

President Raul Castro's government recently vowed that medical missions, which started under his brother Fidel Castro back in 1998, would be maintained and even expanded.

Patients are treated in an intensive care unit on December 22, 2010 at

a hospital in Havana (AFP/File)

"We are going to continue assistance in solidarity to countries that cannot pay for these medical services, as in the case of Haiti," said Health Minister Roberto Morales.

At the moment, 26 nations are paying the Cuban government to send them doctors, at a salary level determined by the Cuban government.

Morales said money earned from the medical contracting arrangement with Venezuela, for example, "helps pay for expenses we incur in other countries" and is also used "to improve workers' health care and working conditions."

The politically based economic arrangement with Venezuela harkens back to the Cold War, when Cuba exported its sugar to the East bloc for cut-rate Soviet oil.

Cuba hopes one day to be able to tap yet another source of revenue: the cash-strapped government believes there are vast crude oil assets off the island's north coast.

But as long as it is unable to access them, Cuba remains economically isolated and dependent on Venezuela, which provides the communist island with cut-rate oil and is the single largest importer of Cuba's medical export workers, taking in about 30,000 of them.