In a notification issued on February 9, the Plant Quarantine and Pesticide Management Centre of the Ministry of Agriculture directed subordinate border offices not to issue import permits for rose flowers, citing the risk of plant diseases.
The centre prohibited the import of roses, citing special reasons in a written directive to 15 customs offices along Nepal's, India's, and China's borders.
Valentine's Day is observed every year on February 14. Roses cannot be imported from Kakadbhitta in the east to Gadda Chowki in the west and any customs points in the north, according to the notice.
"All offices under the centre are requested not to issue rose flower import permits unless another arrangement for special reasons," according to the notification. According to the Plant Quarantine and Pesticide Management Centre, the import has been halted for the time being due to the risk of plant diseases.
According to Mahesh Chandra Acharya, the center's information officer, the import was immediately halted due to the possibility of diseases and insects in the vegetable products. "It has been observed that there is a disease risk in roses and other plants. As a result, imports have been halted for the time being because there has been no proper research into such diseases," Acharya explained.
Nepal imported 10,612 kg of rose flowers worth 1.3 million in the first six months of the current fiscal year, according to Customs Department data. According to JB Tamang, programme coordinator of the Nepal Floriculture Association (NFA), the government's decision will now result in a shortage of roses on the market. Nearly 300,000 sticks of rose flowers are sold in Nepal around Valentine's Day, according to the NFA. According to him, only about 20,000 rose flowers are produced in Nepal.
According to traders, nearly 80% of the demand for red roses is met by imports, according to the Kathmandu Post newspaper. According to the National Floral Association, demand for long-stem red roses peaks at 150,000 stems on Valentine's Day. Most local flower growers can produce 30,000-40,000 stems, with the remainder having to be imported from India. The largest suppliers of red roses to Nepal are Delhi, Bangalore, and Kolkata.
