Bangladesh tea prices rise

Tea prices in Bangladesh rose for a second straight week on strong demand for quality leaf while sales rose despite higher volume on offer. Bangladeshi tea fetched an average of 223.38 taka ($2.74) per kg at the weekly auction on Tuesday, compared with 214.77 taka in the previous sale, the National Brokers said. There was robust demand for quality tea and buyers were ready to pay premiums, which aided the rise both in prices and sales volume despite higher supplies.
About 8 percent of the 2.2 million kg offered at the sole auction centre in Chittagong remained unsold. In the previous auction, 15.5 percent of the 1.85 million kg on offer was unsold. Bangladesh's tea output in 2016 rose nearly 27 percent from a year earlier to a record 85 million kg, a harvest that may be 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.