Romania's forestry manager Romsilva plans to engineer and grow more Christmas trees to compete with high imports

Romanian state – owned forestry company Romsilva, which manages most of the country's forests, plans to engineer and grow 'special' Christmas trees for the 2014 winter season, in an attempt to compete with the Christmas tree imports that have been invading the Romanian market. Romsilva, which has 2,300 nursery gardens, plans to assign special areas for growing Christmas trees, organize irrigation systems and speed up the trees' growth with special stimulants. This would allow the company to market a Christmas tree of 7 to 10 years. “So far we had only small areas with specialized Christmas tree cultures, but we want to bring higher quantities because the market has been invaded by seedling plants produced in Europe and brought here. We can produce them at lower costs, but with a European technology,” said Adam Craciunescu, general manager of Romsilva, quoted by Agerpres. The company currently sells Christmas trees taken from areas where the forest regenerates on its own, but where it needs to be thinned anyway. Meanwhile, imported Christmas trees from Denmark, Hungary, Germany, Poland, Austria, Italy and the Netherlands are being sold on the local market. Data points to some 1.5 million Christmas trees imported every year in Romania. This year, Romsilva plans to sell 51,000 Christmas trees (fir and pine spruce), 21 percent less than in 2012. The prices will however stay flat compared to the last season, between RON 12.5 and RON 37 (or EUR 2.7 to EUR 8.2). On websites which specialize in selling Christmas trees, a tree currently sels for prices between RON 140 and RON 450 (EUR 31 to EUR 100), but approaching Christmas, prices are lower in open markets across larger cities. editor@romania-insider.com