BD tea prices up at weekly auction

Tea prices edged higher at the weekly auction on Tuesday on strong demand for quality leaves amid a lower volume on offer, reports Reuters.

Bangladeshi tea fetched an average price of Tk 236.76 ($2.80) per kg at the auction, compared with a revised price of Tk 236.44 at the previous sale, National Brokers said.

There was a good demand for quality tea and buyers were ready to pay premiums, which aided the rise in prices while supplies were lower than last week, a senior official at National Brokers said.

Around 14.9 per cent of the 2.62 million kg offered at the sole auction centre in Chittagong was unsold. In the previous auction, 14 per cent of the 2.75 million kg on offer was unsold.

Country's tea production jumped nearly 27 per cent last year to a record 85 million kg, helped by favourable weather conditions and making imports a choice, not a necessity.

Bangladesh was the world's fifth-largest tea exporter in the 1990s but is now a net importer due to a surge in domestic consumption in line with economic growth.