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Denise Tsang

It has jeopardised supplies of drinking water to 50 million people and left a crack in the runway at Kunming airport in Yunnan province.
Now its tentacles have spread to the flower market in Hong Kong.
The effects of the once-in-a-century drought that is sweeping across the mainland's southwestern provinces has arrived on Hong Kong's doorstep and is threatening to dry up supplies of flowers. 
Already the result is being felt in higher prices and they could head even higher, flower sellers warn. 
Stall owners in the wholesaling flower mecca in Mong Kok say they are braced for further increases in the price of roses, which have already seen a 33 per cent jump in prices in the past month, and show no signs of abating.
'Roses jumped the most,' said Lau Sai-king,  manager of wholesaler Brighten Floriculture  in the Mong Kok flower market. 'We raised selling prices, but shoppers bargain harder.'
The wholesale price of a bunch of 20 roses imported from Yunnan was about HK$80 on Friday from about HK$60 a month ago, and for many the only alternative was to buy inferior quality blooms to save on price, she said.
Faced with the sharp rise in prices, Lau was also trying to diversify and source flowers from alternative markets in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa to mitigate risks of relying on the mainland.
Yunnan is a major supply centre for flowers to Hong Kong, and accounts for about 80 per cent of the total flower imports into the city, some florists estimate. The province is about a two-hour flight from Hong Kong, which means freight costs on its flowers are lower than charges paid for imports from elsewhere in Asia and also Europe.
However, Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, Guangxi and Chongqing have been hit hard by the drought, which left 20 million people without sufficient drinking water and 6.5 million hectares of farmland parched.
The National Meteorological Centre  forecasts the natural disaster will linger for at least two more months.
At Ming Yat Garden,  which sells special species of potted plants and orchids in Flower Market Road  in Mong Kok, prices of 'miracle' fruit berries from Yunnan, have skyrocketed, owner Chow Kam-hung  said.
The berries are known as 'miracle fruit' because when eaten they ensure that sour food subsequently consumed tastes sweet.
'The drought and the frenzy for the plant has combined to jack up prices heavily,' Chow said. 'The price of the plant, which comes in a pot with fruit and soil, has surged to about 500 yuan [HK$570] from about 150 yuan within three days.'
'That was truly miraculous,' he quipped.
The Yunnan Flower Association  is not optimistic about prospects for the industry in the near term. As a result of the drought, flowers were of poor quality and supplies had tumbled in the past month, it said.
State media has reported that prices of red chillies and tea leaves have also risen sharply as a result of the drought. The spring harvest of tea leaves in Lincang,  Yunnan, was only two-thirds of the total of the harvest last spring, while prices of an ordinary grade of puer tea soared 33 per cent to about 30 yuan per catty.



Drought takes the bloom off HK flower prices