Bangladesh tea prices fall

Tea prices in Bangladesh plunged at a weekly auction on Tuesday, after a brief rise in the previous session, dragged down by inferior quality leaf. Bangladeshi tea fetched an average 191.41 taka ($2.44) per kg at the 28th auction of the current marketing season, compared with 192.54 taka at the previous sale, an executive with National Brokers said.
About 1.83 million kg were offered at the sole auction centre in Chittagong, of which 9.6 percent was unsold. In the previous auction, about 13.76 percent of the 2.03 million kg offered went unsold.
Buyers showed little interest in poor quality tea and that pulled down overall prices, the executive said.
Typically demand for tea rises in Bangladesh during the winter. The national budget for the 2015/16 fiscal year that started in July raised the regulatory duty on tea imports by 5 percent to discourage overseas buying.