Bangladesh tea prices rise on strong demand

DHAKA: Tea prices in Bangladesh rose at the weekly auction for the seventh time in a row on strong demand for quality leaf despite a higher volume on offer.

Bangladeshi tea fetched an average of 251.20 taka ($2.7) per kg in the port city of Chittagong on Tuesday, compared with 243.61 taka at the previous sale in the new auction centre in Srimangal.

There was robust demand from buyers this week despite higher supplies than the previous sale in the auction centre in the country's northeastern region, where most of the tea gardens are located, an official at National Brokers said.

About 2 percent of the 1.96 million kg offered in the auction was left unsold. At the previous auction, around 1.21 million kg was offered, of which 1.4 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.