Business

European flight cancellations hurt Kenyan flower market
by Magdalena Rosova

The eruption of volcano in Iceland has impact far beyond the borders of Europe. African flower exporters are not able to send their flowers to Europe because of massive flight cancellations all over Europe. The exporters are facing serious losses of millions euros. Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia, flower exporting countries, will loose millions of euros if the ash cloud do not move and the air traffic in Europe does not restart. Kenya Flower Council stated that the sector is losing two million dollars a day. Flowers can not wait as passengers in the airports, they are spoiling and the companies had to pay a lot to keep them in cold rooms in the airports. McCarthy Imende,! sales and marketing manager of one of Kenya's flower exporters said that the company would have a serious problem with the cashflow. It will be difficult even to pay workers because they will not get any money from the shipment of the flowers. After tourism and tea, flowers are the third highest exports in Kenya. Imende said that their shipments to Scandinavia and the United Kingdom had been interrupted. The shipment to United States is interrupted as well because the company send flowers on British Airways, which has canceled its flights. In spite of the transportation interruption, farmers have to continue production. They are harvesting the flowers and trying to store them in the cold storage as much as possible. But if the situation does not change quickly, the farmers will have to stop harvesting, which will lead to even bigger losses.

related story (sgx17029): http:/! /allafrica.com/stories/201004170004.html...
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by Magdalena Rosova for Cantell TV (http://cantell.tv)

Cantell TV is the fastest growing provider of digital broadcasting coupled with telecommunications, allowing people to easily control, view, upload and share digital content through proprietary interface coupled with free phone calls. Cantell TV is committed to delivering infinite choices to your world of entertainment at the tip of your fingers.

posted by Blog TechSource @ 2:41 PM