DHAKA: Tea prices fell at Bangladesh’s weekly auction amid higher supply than at the previous sale, although strong demand for quality leaf capped a steeper price decline. Bangladeshi tea fetched an average price of 229.62 taka ($2.80) per kg at the auction, compared with a revised price of 234.98 taka in the previous sale, National Brokers said. There was muted demand overall but good demand for quality leaf, which helped limit a steep drop in prices when supplies were higher than last week, a senior official at National Brokers said.About 39.5 percent of the 2.5 million kg offered at the sole auction centre in Chittagong was unsold, compared with 32.4 percent unsold of the 2.29 million kg offered at the previous auction. Bangladesh’s tea production jumped nearly 27 percent in 2016 to a record 85 million kg, helped by favourable weather, making imports a choice, not a necessity.
The South Asian country was the world’s fifth-largest tea exporter in the 1990s but is now a net importer due to a surge in domestic consumption in line with economic growth.
