Tea prices in Bangladesh rose at the weekly auction on Tuesday, snapping a four-week run of falls, due to strong demand for quality leaf amid tight supplies near the end of the season. Bangladeshi tea fetched an average 154.96 taka ($2) per kg at the 42nd auction of the marketing season, up from 151.24 taka in the previous sale, National Brokers said in a market report.
About 1.17 million kg were offered at the sole auction centre in the port city of Chittagong, with 13.6 percent going unsold. In the previous auction, about 19.7 percent of the 1.8 million kg offered was unsold. There was strong demand for good grade tea when supplies dropped from last week as the current season ends this month after two auctions, National Brokers said. The national budget for the 2015/16 fiscal year, which began in July, raised the regulatory duty on tea imports by 5 percent to discourage overseas buying.