NAIROBI: The average price of Kenya's top grade tea dropped to $3.40 per kg at this week's auction from $3.54 a week earlier, snapping a four week period of climbing prices, brokers said on Wednesday.
Mombasa-based African Tea Brokers (ATB) said in its weekly market report that 22.92 percent of the 110,571 packages -- or 7.06 million kg -- on offer received no bids.
Kenya is the world's biggest exporter of black tea, which last year raked in $1.16 billion for east Africa's largest economy, making it the country's top foreign exchange earner.
Tea auction sales fell 7 percent to 87.9 million kgs in the first quarter of this year amid weeks of political upheaval in Egypt, the leading export destination for Kenyan tea last year.
At the latest auction, Best BP1s sold for $3.70-$3.10 per kg, down from $4.08-$3.00 in the previous sale. Best Pekoe Fanning Ones fetched $3.44-$3.00 per kg compared with $3.52-$3.14 in last week's, ATB said.
"Yemen and other Middle Eastern countries lent strong support and there was more activity from Sudan (and) U.K. Pakistan Packers and Egyptian Packers maintained interest. Afghanistan was less active and at lower levels," ATB said.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.