EU duty approval to come just in time for Kenya's Valentine roses - official

A worker tends to rose-flowers in this file photo, to be exported to Europe ahead of Valentine's Day, inside a greenhouse at the Oserian farm in Naivasha, 100km (62 miles) from Kenya's capital Nairobi, February 12, 2009. REUTERS/Noor Khamis

NAIROBI (Reuters) - The renewal of a duty-free regime between the European Union and five east African nations may not win approval until January, an EU official said, bringing it dangerously close to the Valentine's Day holiday so lucrative for Kenya's flower growers.

The flowers sold in the two weeks leading up to Feb. 14 account for about a third of annual sales for Kenya's flower producers, some 90 percent of them roses, according to the Fresh Producers Exporters Association of Kenya (FPEAK).