She said more than 2,000 jobs will be created as development of rose processing, family inns, logistics and tourism services speeds up.
Gao Zhengcai, Party chief of Damao, also a Li village near the valley, and head of one of the 18 rose-growing cooperatives, said growing the flowers has produced good returns for farmers. With an annual income of 160,000 yuan, Gao himself has bought two vehicles and has more than 1 million yuan in savings.
"We used to have no money, no cars and no decent houses. Now we have everything. I still remember that I made President Xi and the accompanying leaders laugh when I said growing roses is not easy and it is like taking care of a beauty," said Gao, adding that more neighbors are finding that growing roses is an attractive choice and are ready to join cooperatives.
The local government has spent 700 million yuan on infrastructure around the valley and is jointly introducing new business practices to generate more opportunities, highlighting the promotion of a rose culture and protection of traditional Li culture, local officials said.
"We will continue to enhance the rose valley as a tourism complex and a rose feature town, with a projected investment of 6 billion yuan in five years," said Yang of the development company, who started her career in Sanya after years of having a flower business in Shanghai. "We are leading tourists to the villages and are helping more farmers turn their extra houses into rose-culture-style rural inns for leisure tourism, yet with good protection of the Li lifestyle."
She said the company plans to develop the valley, the largest rose complex in Asia, into a world center of rose essence and fragrance and turn Sanya into a global rose trading center to promote exchanges and cooperation, especially with countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative.
The company is expanding its growing areas of roses in other parts of Hainan, making new efforts to generate more added value from growing roses and developing in-depth rose processing and a rose culture to produce greater benefits for local people, Yang said.
She said, in cooperation with scientists from the Ministry of Science and expert teams from Taiwan, the company has developed 150 kinds of rose products under 38 series, such as rose wine brewing, cosmetics, rose cakes, rose tea and ornaments.
"We will highlight standardization management of our seedlings, agricultural material supply, growing and processing skills, branding and sales in a bid to produce quality products and build up our own brands," Yang said.
"I want to turn the rose valley into a fragrant Claude Monet-style garden," she said. A dream that is becoming an impressive reality.
