GLOBAL FLORICULTURE INDUSTRY VALUE CHAIN. POSITION OF THE UKRAINIAN FIRMS IN THE FLORICULTURE BUSINESS.

Abstract: Floriculture industry is very dynamic in its varieties and trade volumes demonstrating 6 to 9 % of annual growth. It gets also more and more diverse in terms of global actors. Now there are about 120 countries actively involved in the floriculture industry as global manufactures with the Netherlands as an epicentre of world flower production and distribution. In that respect, analysis of the floriculture industry in terms of global value chain changes is an interesting and relevant issue to address as it has gone through some global conversion and is still shifting in the direction of cost and production optimization. First aim of the research is to conduct an analysis of the main processes that shape the global value chain structure and functioning using an empirical illustration of the floriculture industry. The study provides insights on the industry’s key actors and processes from the point of production to the final consumption destination. However, further scope of the research is narrowed down to the analysis of the Dutch floriculture sector, as the main hub in the global floriculture industry value chain, and the investigation of the potted and garden plants chain, as it demonstrates considerable differences from the one of cut flowers. Another aim of the research is to proceed from the macro analysis of the global industry actors and global value chain to a micro level perspective in the empirical analysis that was done to analyse Ukraine as a consumption hub in the industry value chain.