Since Valentine’s Day, Miami flower importers have watched their expenses climb, contending with rising fuel prices and surcharges and, most vexing of all, the expiration of an Andean trade program that allowed them to bring in flowers from Colombia and Ecuador without paying duties.
Now U.S. flower importers must pay duties ranging from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent on the billions of roses, carnations and other blooms imported from Andean countries — the source of about 90 percent of the flowers shipped through Miami International Airport.
“For us, it’s been very difficult. This is really like putting a sales tax on flowers,’’ said Geno Valdes, president and chief executive of Sunburst Farms, one of South Florida’s oldest and largest flower importers and distributors.
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