The average price of Kenya's top grade of tea fell to $4.01 per kg at auction this week, from $4.22 at the last sale, weighed by sluggish demand for the crop, market participants said on Wednesday. The east African nation is the world's leading exporter of black tea, which is a major source of foreign exchange, earning it 112 billion shillings ($1.31 billion) last year.
Tea grade Best Broken Pekoe Ones (BP1) sold at between $5.02-$3.00 per kg during the sale, down from the $5.14-$3.30 per kg it had fetched at the previous sale, Africa Tea Brokers (ATB) said in a market report. Grade Best Pekoe Fanning Ones (PF1) sold for $3.48-$2.95 per kg, compared with $3.47-$2.99 attained at last week's sale.
ATB said 141,013 packages of tea were offered for sale at the auction with nearly 23 percent going unsold. Some 146,154 packages of tea were offered at the previous sale, with 21 percent remaining unsold. The weekly tea auction at the port city of Mombasa usually features tea from other regional producers like Burundi. Buyers from Yemen, other Middle Eastern countries and Sudan were the most active at this week's sale, ATB said.