A young couple buy flowers ahead of Valentine's Day from a florist's shop on Chongqing Road N. yesterday.

Roses have been climbing in price in the run-up to Valentine's Day.

Yesterday at Yongjia Flower Fair in Shanghai, a popular flower wholesale market, vendors were selling roses for six yuan (83 US cents) each. Last year the wholesale price was about five yuan each, according to the florists.

"The stock price for roses from Kunming in Yunnan Province is higher than that of last year, and has increased by about 10 percent recently," said a vendor surnamed Zhang at Yongjia Flower Fair.

"Traffic costs to transport those flowers from south China to Shanghai have also increased - that's why many flowers have increased in price from the beginning of this year," explained Zhang.

At florist shops yesterday, red roses were sold for between 10 yuan and 12 yuan each. Prices of a popular blue-tinged rose varied from 20 yuan to 25 yuan.

Roses have remained popular since before the Spring Festival, florists say.

But heavy snow since mid-January has cut the supply of roses to a large extent, since most of the flowers on sale in Shanghai are from southern provinces like Yunnan and Taiwan. "We don't have as many roses as last year," said a florist surnamed Ding at Cao'an Flower Fair. "We keep trying to get more roses from the growers."

(Shanghai Daily February 14, 2008)