Bangladesh tea prices rally for second week

Dhaka (Reuters): Tea prices in Bangladesh rose at the weekly auction for a second straight session on strong demand for quality leaf amid tight supplies.

Bangladeshi tea fetched an average of 210.47 taka ($ 2.60) per kg at the weekly auction on Tuesday, compared with 209.34 taka in the previous sale, the National Brokers said.

There was strong demand for quality tea and buyers were ready to pay premiums, while supplies were lower than last week, a senior National Brokers official said.

About 9.9% of the 2.4 million kg offered at the sole auction centre in Chittagong remained unsold. In the previous auction, 15% of the 2.82 million kg on offer was unsold.

Bangladesh’s tea output 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.

Bangladeshi buyers have imported tea in bulk from India, Thailand and Malaysia, contributing to a glut in the domestic market and reducing demand at auctions, industry insiders said.