Russian govt extends elevated import duty on flowers from unfriendly countries until end-2025

MOSCOW. Dec 16 (Interfax) - The Russian government has extended the elevated import duty flowers from unfriendly countries until the end of 2025.

A resolution on the matter was signed on December 11, 2024 and posted on the official legal information portal.

The duty on cut flowers and flower buds is 20%, but not less than 1.3 euros per kg. It was increased in July this year, prior to which it was 5%, but not less than 0.3 euros per kg.

Agriculture Minister Oksana Lut said at the Federation Council in October that Russia could continue to raise import duty on flowers, including flowers from friendly countries, if their distributors were registered in unfriendly countries. "And we will continue to look at introducing duties like this if, for example, a company that deals with flowers in a friendly country is registered in an unfriendly country," she said. "We have started the analysis. This is more complex information. But we'll still achieve this and make progress with guaranteeing a market for our flower growers," she said.

Lut said Russia itself grew around 390 million flower stems or 25% of the market. The Agriculture Ministry hopes to increase production this year, with preferential investment loans introduced to build flower greenhouses. Two major projects are currently being carried out in the Tambov and Tula regions, to grow 16 million flower stems per year.