DHAKA: Tea prices in Bangladesh fell about 9 per cent at the weekly auction owing to higher supplies of inferior grade leaf despite a drop in volume on offer.
According to details, Bangladesh tea fetched an average of 152.29 taka ($2.50) per kg at the auction, compared with 167.83 taka in the previous sale. The volume of poor grade leaf was higher and that contributed to a sharp decline in prices, a senior official at National Brokers said.
However, there was strong demand for quality tea that helped to limit any further drop in prices, the official added. A huge quantity of tea remains unsold although the total volume offered for sale this week was lower as compared with the previous week.
About 41.4 per cent of the 2.46 million kg offered at the sole auction centre in Chittagong was left unsold. In the previous auction, about 42 per cent of the 2.58 million kg on offer remained unsold.
Bangladesh’s tea production in 2016 is expected to have raised to a record 80 million kg from 66 million a year earlier, Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed said, output that may be big enough to make imports unnecessary.
From a net exporter, Bangladesh has now become a net importer of tea due to the increase in consumption.
