BOGOTA – Colombian flower growers wilting under higher costs, a strong peso and more competition from Africa, may get much needed relief from the U.S. Congress if it approves a free-trade pact with the South American nation.
Under the deal Colombia, the world's second largest exporter of cut flowers after the Netherlands, would be able to export stems tariff-free to a market that represented three fourths of the country's $1.24 billion flower exports in 2010.
But an expected appreciation of the Colombian peso would put further pressure on Colombia's fifth most important legal export, wiping out most of the gains from selling cut flowers duty free in the United States.
"The free-trade agreement will give us oxygen but it does not compensate us yet," said Jose Mauricio Barrera, marketing manager for Flores Funza, a 350-hectare (865-acre) flower farm near Colombia's capital, Bogota.
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