Bangladesh tea prices rise

Tea prices in Bangladesh rose at the weekly auction for the fifth time in a row on robust demand for quality leaf despite the higher volume on offer.
Bangladeshi tea fetched an average of 242.52 taka ($2.7) per kg at the auction centre in the port city of Chittagong on Tuesday, compared with 238.34 taka at the previous sale.
There was strong demand for quality tea and buyers were ready to pay premiums that aided the rise in prices, despite the bigger volume offered in the auction, an official at National Brokers said.
About 3 percent of the 1.54 million kg offered in the auction was left unsold. At the previous auction, around 1.54 million kg was offered, of which 0.6 percent went unsold.
Bangladesh's tea production dropped to nearly 79 million kg in 2017 from a record 85 million kg the previous year, which officials attributed to excessive rainfall. The South Asian country was the world's fifth-largest tea exporter in the 1990s, but is now a net importer as the surge in domestic consumption is in line with economic growth.