FloraHolland’s World Flower Exchange programme is taking the first steps in exploring the market for flowers and plants in China. The programme is establishing relationships with innovative parties in the Chinese market.

During the trade mission to China, FloraHolland CEO Lucas Vos signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with YiHaoDian (YHD.com), the largest fresh-products online platform of China with sales of about €2.4 billion and 9 million active users.

A MoU was also signed with OurBloom, a Chinese horticultural company with innovative online activities. Furthermore, FloraHolland is building relationships in China such as with Tencent, the company behind WeChat (one of the largest social platforms in China).

On that last day of the trade mission, FloraHolland signed an agreement with an innovative logistics party in the presence of King Willem-Alexander. The same day, Jack Ma, CEO of the Internet giant Alibaba, stated that the Chinese want to have tulips from the Netherlands, “We want to import more flowers”, the reason: the Chinese want to make their lives happier and more romantic with flowers.

With these parties, FloraHolland will be setting up a number of trials starting in 2016 to explore further the market for Dutch flowers in China.

At the various events during the state visit, the flowers were sponsored by FloraHolland.