NAIROBI: The average price of Kenyan top grade tea held steady at $4.03 per kg at auction this week, stabilising after two consecutive weeks of falls, market participants said on Wednesday.
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 said in a market report that Best Broken Pekoe Ones sold at $3.90-$4.16 per kg, unchanged from last week.
Best Pekoe Fanning Ones fetched $3.83-$4.14 per kg, up from $3.75-$4.04 per kg at the previous sale.
It said 101,742 packages were offered for sale, with 11 percent going unsold. Last week, 99,441 packages were offered with 12.23 percent left unsold.
Egyptian Packers, the leading buyers of Kenyan tea, Pakistan Packers, Yemen and Afghanistan lent strong support at the auction.
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.
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