NAIROBI: The average price of Kenyan top grade tea fell to $4.00 per kg at auction this week from $4.04 kg last week, traders said on Tuesday.
The east African nation is the world's biggest exporter of black tea, and the crop is one of its largest foreign exchange earners, raking in $1.27 billion last year.
The Mombasa-based Africa Tea Brokers (ATB) said in a market report that Best Broken Pekoe Ones sold at $4.16-$3.84 per kg, from $4.26-$3.82 last week.
Best Pekoe Fanning Ones fetched $4.08-3.78 per kg, up from per $3.98-$3.80 kg at the previous sale.
It said 96,066 packages were offered for sale, with 12.6 percent going unsold. Last week, 99,715 packages were offered with 13.7 percent left unsold.
Pakistan Packers lent strong support and the United Kingdom was more active, ATB said. There was more activity in the auction from Yemen, other Middle Eastern countries and Kazakhstan, while Egyptian Packers were active at lower levels.
The Tea Board of Kenya said the country's full-year production was expected to fall by 5 percent, compared with last year's 377 million kg, after extreme weather in the first half.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.