Asia's largest flower market in Yunnan resumes operation

The Kunming Dounan Flower Market, Asia's largest fresh cut flower trading market in southwest China's Yunnan Province, resumed operation Monday when the province lowered its COVID-19 emergency response from first-level to third-level.

To prevent infections, the market increased space between stalls and requires vendors to trade at different hours, according to the management of the market.

All trading venues, offices and other places in the market will be disinfected before and after the transactions. Traders are required to wear masks, register and verify identities, take body temperature and scan QR code with mobile phones before entering the trading place, it said.

The Dounan market mainly provides two forms of trading including face-to-face trading and electronic auctions.

Influenced by the virus outbreak, the market shut down the flower and plant trading, tourism and catering services on Jan. 26 and suspended auction services on Feb. 6.

The market resumed auction services on Feb. 10. As more flower shops open their doors and logistics services improve, it has decided to resume more businesses.

As a barometer of China's flower market, the Kunming-based market in Yunnan saw the trading volume of fresh cut flowers reach 9.23 billion with a turnover of 7.44 billion yuan (about 1.06 billion U.S. dollars) in 2019.

Editor: John Li