Burundi's tea export earnings fell 8 percent in March compared with the same month in the previous year, partly due to low supplies, a tea board official said on Friday. The country's state-run tea board (OTB) said it collected $2.09 million from the export of 736,658 kg, down from $2.26 million gained in the same period in 2010 from selling 817,951 kg.
"Most of the tea exported in March was produced in January, and production in the main growing areas dropped in January following strong rains that damaged the leaves," said OTB's head of exports, Remy Ndayininahaze. The average export price was $2.85 per kilogram, up from $2.77 in March 2010, but lower than the $3.06 and $3.20 per kilogram obtained respectively in February and in January this year.
Ndayininahaze attributed the drop in export prices to the ongoing political unrest in some Arab nations such as Yemen and Libya. Landlocked Burundi exports 80 percent of its tea through a regional weekly auction held in the Kenyan port city of Mombasa. OTB projections put 2011 tea output at 9,000 tonnes from 8,016 tonnes in the previous season, mainly due to an increased use of fertilisers on tea farms.
The board forecasts 2011 overall earnings at $13.4 million. It collected $18.8 million in 2010 from exports and domestic sales, up from $16 million earned in 2009. Tea is second to coffee as the country's foreign exchange earner and employs some 300,000 smallholder farmers in the nation of 8 million people.
Comments
Comments are closed.