Burundi tea export earnings jump in November

Thursday, 29 December 2011 01:15 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

BUJUMBURA (Reuters): Burundi’s tea export earnings jumped 60 percent year-on-year in November, driven up by high volumes and a stronger regional market, a tea board official said on Wednesday.

The country’s state-run tea board(OTB) said $1.41 million was collected from the export of 560,353 kg, up from $878,877 earned in the same period in 2010 from the sale of 357,745 kg.

“We exported a high quantity of tea in November this year due to a good output. But high prices on the market also helped boost revenues,” Joseph Marc Ndahigeze, an export official at OTB, said.

Tea is the Central African country’s second largest hard currency earner after coffee and employs some 300,000 smallholder farmers in a nation of 8 million people.

January-November total revenues reached $21.2 million, surpassing total earnings from tea in 2010 of $18.8 million. Landlocked Burundi sells 80 percent of its tea through a weekly auction held in the Kenyan port city of Mombasa. Ndahigeze said the average price per kg climbed to $2.53, up from $2.46 last year.