Xijiang Flower Sea in Zhongshan's Henglan Town was ablaze with blooms on January 7. Chen Kaicheng, owner of landscaping company Linting, smiled while reviewing a digital receipt. "Four decades-old paperflower (bougainvillea glabra) trees were just delivered to a client in Cambodia's Phnom Penh, totaling over 60,000 US dollars."

Linting's debut export to Cambodia set a 100,000-yuan per-plant benchmark for premium orders, marking Zhongshan's paperflower industry breakthrough in Southeast Asia. 

As China's key flower production hub, Henglan Town has built a paperflower-centric floral cluster. In recent years, many local growers have turned their attention to overseas markets.

Linting exemplifies this industrial upgrade. The company now spans Middle East-Southeast Asia markets: its May 2025 Saudi Arabia debut export rapidly captured high-end landscaping niches, generating over 3 million yuan international revenue that year. 

"Similar climates to Zhongshan mean low cultivation costs and high market acceptance," Chen explained. Compliance certifications and optimized logistics enable robust margins, with Malaysia and Indonesia orders secured and more than 5 million yuan international revenue projected for 2026."

Policy tailwinds also bolster overseas expansion. Enhanced China-ASEAN trade facilitation expanded tariff preferences for floral exports, boosted logistics efficiency by 20%, and reduced overall costs by 15%.