DHAKA, Dec. 27 (Xinhua) -- From gorgeous festivals to daily life in Bangladesh using flowers is a must.
Home decor is important to many Bangladeshis who enjoy displaying a lot of different items, particularly Chinese flowers made from polyester.
More and more people here are now procuring such Chinese flowers to decorate their houses, offices and business outlets ahead of the New Year, with the boom in the floral business benefiting both countries.
Sohan Hossain is a university student at Dhaka's leading Jagannath University.
"They (Chinese) gave us the opportunity to decorate our homes with such beautiful flowers at such a low price," Sohan told Xinhua recently.
He said, "I come here (a big market in Dhaka) to buy artificial flowers. There are so many beautiful flowers. It is a wholesale market of artificial flowers."
Not everyone can do everything, he said, adding that the Chinese are the best in making home decor items, including flowers.
Md Yasin is also browsing through flowers at a shop in the wholesale flower market.
"Now a lot of flowers are sold, many people buy flowers for Mehfil (Islamic gathering) and wedding events. I also come to buy flowers," said Yasin.
Din Islam Mintu is a Chinese flower trader and also the owner of Mintu Full Ghar flower house, where different types of flowers imported from China can be found.
Mintu said, "The Chinese have given me the latest collections. I can offer the same to my Bangladeshi customers. Everyone likes the high quality and ever-changing array of colors the Chinese flowers come in."
"They basically sell themselves because they're so popular," he explained.
Md. Alamgir Hossain is an importer of Chinese home decor items, especially flowers.
Once upon a time people did not know about artificial flowers, he said and now they distribute large quantities of flowers all over Bangladesh.
"These artificial flowers have taken the place of real flowers in some cases," said the businessman.
"The Chinese flower trade has really benefited us all and helped employment here," he said.
Another importer Hamidur Rahman who is the owner of Al Hera International said his business was hampered due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
"We couldn't go to China, but imported as much as possible by phone (conversation). It would've been better if we could've gone in person to select the flowers, but we could still import new products, despite the pandemic," he said.
Demand here for Chinese artificial flowers is booming as they're "so well made they look exactly like real ones, you can hardly tell the difference," Hamidur said. ■
