Bangladesh tea prices rise for seventh week

Dhaka (Reuters): Tea prices in Bangladesh rose at the weekly auction for the seventh time in a row due to strong demand for quality leaves amid tight supplies.

Bangladeshi tea fetched an average price of 229.72 taka ($ 2.79) per kg at the auction last week compared with 229.62 taka at the previous sale, the National Brokers said. There was strong demand and buyers were ready to pay premiums while supplies were lower than in the last sale, it said.

About 10.4% of the 2.36 million kg offered at the sole auction centre in Chittagong remained unsold. In the previous auction, 12.8% of the 2.78 million kg on offer was unsold.

Bangladesh’s tea production rose nearly 27% last year to a record 85 million kg, a harvest that was seen as big enough to make imports unnecessary.

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.