Kenya aims for more flower exports this year

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenyan flower growers this year aim to raise export volumes despite the global slowdown, the chief executive of their association said on Thursday.

The east African nation, which is the European Union's leading source of cut and ornamental flowers, saw volumes grow by 2.2 percent in 2008 despite of a bloody post-election crisis.

"We expect to sustain growth in export volumes," Jane Ngige of the private Kenya Flower Council told reporters, adding the global crisis had made it hard to forecast 2009 earnings.

"We have to sit back and calculate where we are going to go in 2009."

Earnings in 2008 fell to 40 billion shillings compared with 43 billion shillings in 2007, on the back of a stronger dollar.

The industry pays for growing inputs and freight costs to European markets in dollars, meaning the greenback's rise against the shilling pushed up costs that had already been raised by high commodity prices.

The depreciation of the pound sterling in the second half of last year also hurt earnings. Britain buys 25 percent of the flowers exported by Kenya, Ngige said.

Horticulture is one of the biggest earners for Kenya, along with tourism, tea and remittances from Kenyans abroad.

Ngige said she expected the share of Kenyan flower exports to Japan to rise to 20 percent by the end of this year from 15 percent currently.

"This will translate into substantial earnings as Japan is a high value market," she said. The flower industry employs more than 100,000 Kenyans.