Bangladesh tea prices rise in last auction of the season

DHAKA (Reuters): Tea prices in Bangladesh rose on Tuesday at the last auction of the current season, snapping a six-week run of declines, amid tight supplies.

Bangladeshi tea fetched an average price of 196.54 taka ($2.80) per kg at the auction, compared with a revised price of 184.12 taka in the previous sale, National Brokers said. Buyers showed some interest in the last sale of this season, said an official at National Brokers.

Only 0.3% of the 430,470 kg offered at the sole auction centre in Chittagong was unsold, compared with 1.5% unsold of the 1.19 million kg offered at the previous auction.

Bangladesh’s tea production jumped nearly 27% in 2016 to a record 85 million kg, helped by favourable weather, making imports a choice rather than a necessity.

The South Asian country was the world’s fifth-largest tea exporter in the 1990s but is now a net importer because of a surge in domestic consumption in line with economic growth.