KUNMING — Freshly cut flowers added a festive air to Spring Festival celebrations this year, as well as fueling a booming trade.

Dounan Flower Market, Asia's largest fresh-cut flower trading market, has seen flourishing trade and surging prices since the beginning of the year, with a series of festivals from New Year, Spring Festival and Lantern Festival.

During the period, the average price of major categories of flowers in the market in Kunming, Yunnan province, reached about 2.5 yuan (34 cents) per stem, an increase of 40 percent compared with the same period last year.

After the eight-day Spring Festival holiday, from Feb 5 to 13, the center's average daily trading volume amounted to around 4.5 million stems, with the highest daily trading volume exceeding 6 million stems.

Zhu Qi, planning manager of the Kunming International Flower Auction Trading Center in Dounan, said the price of single-headed roses rose sharply from 5 yuan to 7 yuan per stem. The highest under-the-hammer price of high-end roses exceeded 13 yuan per stem during Spring Festival.

Meanwhile, the price of other festival flowers, including lisianthus, carnations, lilies and tulips, also surged.

In addition to the auction trade, during Spring Festival the transaction volume of fresh-cut flowers in Dounan's retail market reached about 190 million stems, with a sales volume registering 288 million yuan. The market is also a popular tourist destination in Kunming, attracting over 40,000 visitors on average daily.

As a barometer of China's overall flower market, the market has seen booming sales via various e-commerce platforms. Yunshe Flowers, a vendor's account on the Chinese short-video sharing platform Douyin, saw its average daily revenue topping 5 million yuan during Spring Festival.

Xinhua