CGTN: Blooming 'flower economy' - Heze's peony industry boosts development, cultural exchanges
Through a thorough introduction of how the peony industry drives the local development and promotes cultural exchanges, the article highlights the Heze Peony Festival's important role in enhancing friendship, and strengthening cooperation and cultural exchanges.
In 2000, Li Xiaoqi, a graduate of China Agricultural University, returned to his hometown in Heze, Shandong Province, and began working in the peony industry. Through years of dedication, he expanded his family's small 10-mu peony field into a 2,200-mu modern industrial park with facilities for seedling cultivation, flower processing, cold storage and research.
Beyond growing his own business, Li trained and supported hundreds of local farmers in peony cultivation, playing a key role in poverty alleviation and boosting the region's peony industry.
The thriving peony industry has enabled Heze – "the peony capital of China" – to foster four major development sectors focusing on seedling breeding, flower cultivation, deep processing and cultural tourism.
The 2025 World Peony Conference and the 34th Heze International Peony Cultural Tourism Festival, collectively referred to as the 2025 Heze Peony Festival, officially kicked off on Tuesday. Featuring four sub-forums and 29 activities, the festival will last one month.
Blooming 'flower economy'
As the world's largest peony planting and scientific research and processing base, in recent years, Heze has continued to tap the advantages of peonies in areas such as variety cultivation, industrial expansion, and cultural and tourism integration.
The city has currently cultivated nine color systems, 10 flower shapes and 1,308 varieties, with its planting area and number of varieties ranking first globally.
Besides the peony, Heze has developed the cultivation of other flowers such as the herbaceous peony, rose and gerbera jamesonii. Last year, the city's sales of fresh-cut herbaceous peony flowers reached 120 million pieces, which were exported to more than 20 countries and regions in the world.
In terms of industrial development, Heze has built a complete industrial chain from planting and processing to tourism and cultural creativity.
Having more than 120 peony production and processing enterprises and 20 scientific research institutions, the city has developed over 260 peony-derived products, ranging from seed oil, cosmetics and cultural products. Last year, the total output value of the peony industry reached 13 billion yuan (about $1.8 billion).
As Heze's most beautiful business card, peony has become a powerful engine for the high-quality development of cultural tourism, said Yu Jiannan, head of the Shandong Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism.
Promoting cultural exchanges
On Wednesday and Thursday, the Heze Peony International Communication Forum was held. A series of activities, such as the digital interpretation of paintings which converts static paintings into dynamic images, and digital images of peonies generated by ChatGPT, have injected new impetus into the international dissemination of peony culture through technological empowerment.
In recent years, Heze has deeply explored the values of peonies, and actively created a friendly cultural symbol for global communication.
In addition to the holding of the forum, the city has established overseas sub-venues of the Peony Festival in countries such as the Netherlands, Japan and South Korea.
It has also set up peony culture communication stations in Brazil, Malaysia, Romania and other countries, and held award events related to the peony to introduce the beauty of peonies to more than 50 Belt and Road partner countries, offering an intriguing window into the popular perception of peony culture.
The festival has built an important platform for enhancing friendship, strengthening cooperation and cultural exchanges, said Yu.
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