Tea prices in Bangladesh rose for the fourth consecutive session at a weekly auction on Tuesday on strong demand from buyers despite higher supply, brokers said. The average price of Bangladeshi tea was 208.59 taka ($2.5) a kg against 206.69 taka per kg at the previous sale a week ago, an official at National Brokers Limited, the country's largest tea broking firm said.
Around 1.47 million kg of tea was offered at Bangladesh's sole auction centre in Chittagong, and 4.35 percent was left unsold. That compared with 3.86 percent unsold in the previous auction, when the offered volumes were 1.34 million kg. The next auction will be held on August 14, with around 1 million kg on offer. Around a quarter of Bangladeshi tea is of poorer quality and prices of good-quality tea are high compared with those of other countries.
There was huge demand for good-quality tea throughout the 2011/12 year, with the average price rising to around 130 taka from 104 taka a year earlier, brokers said. Tea offered at the Chittagong auction is mostly bought by domestic buyers. Bangladesh's tax authority in January imposed a 25 percent duty on imports of tea to safeguard the local industry. The south Asian country produces 60 million kg of tea a year against demand of 56 million kg. But tea consumption is rising by 4.5 percent annually, in line with steady economic growth.