Ambitious growth plans for Chinese horticulture, supported by the government. Over the next years, the team with the government supported group CTIEC wants to invest in a thousand greenhouse projects of minimum 7 hectares each to supply Chinese consumers with fresh, high quality and safely grown greenhouse vegetables. They are supported by a consortium of Dutch suppliers, specialized to reach this goal. At the Horti China, the newly formed group presented themselves and shared information on how they offer integrated project solutions for the horticultural industry.
“We want to make healthy food available for more people and believe horticulture is the way to do so”, Vice President Max Wang with China Triumph International Engineering Company (CTIEC) spoke ambitiously this week at the Horti China. “Our plan is to set up greenhouses all over China.”
It’s not just words coming from his mouth. CTIEC, a government owned company, is realizing this plan in three ways. One part of the company is specialized in building supplies. Currently being one of the major players in China, they're expanding these activities to the greenhouse industry. A second branch of their group specializes in investing and can help new growers set up their enterprise financially. The third activity that they are involved with is operating the greenhouses and marketing their product. Currently that number is three, but within the next year another ten will be finished, and over the next years this number is to rise significantly. “Our goal is to realize at least 1000 greenhouse phases of minimum 7 hectares”, Max Wang explained. By bringing a quality, greenhouse-grown product to the market and being in contact with the final consumer via big players like Alibaba, they want to extend their presence rapidly.
In order to do so they partnered up with a consortium of Dutch greenhouse suppliers that presented themselves during this week's Horti China. Initiated by Pierre Bell & Joost Bogaard with Flexible Greenhouse Systems, who have been working closely with Flynth business advisors and accountants for many years they now are joined by Koppert Machines and Van Paassen crop advice. Together they offer a broad spectrum of expertises that can help Chinese growers with integrated greenhouse concepts.
“We offer a full service package to the Chinese industry. Whereas the focus is often on technique, we can add expertise in growing and also on the financial part and the ROI of the project”, says Joost Bogaard with Flexibell Greenhouse Systems. In total that means economic analyses, project and scenario planning, engineering, supplying and construction of the materials and installations, post-harvest support and crop advice. By offering this integrated approach, they want to help the Chinese industry that is in demand of complete service and support. “Choosing a certain technique or service should not only be depending on the budget of the client, but should support them and add to a realistic and sustainable business case in order to make upscaling possible”, Frank Hollaar with Flynth explains. “And upscaling for sure is needed in the Chinese market.”
The collaboration with CTIEC is presented at the Horti China this week in Qingdao. CTIEC is one of the partners that will use the service of the consortium for their project design and development. “Knowledge is one of the challenges that we need to overcome in order to make our ambitions successful. That’s why we want to work together with experts from this industry. Only together we can make a success out of these plans”, Max Wang explained.