Tea prices in Bangladesh fell sharply at the weekly auction on Tuesday on higher supplies of inferior-grade leaf, but low prices attracted foreign buyers that led to a rise in sales volume. Bangladesh tea fetched an average of 134.67 taka ($2.50) per kg at the auction, compared with 150.81 taka in the previous sale. The volume of poor-grade leaf was higher and that contributed to a sharp decline in prices, a senior official at National Brokers said.
Buyers from Pakistan, however, were more active due to the low prices and sales rose despite higher supplies compared with last week, the official added. About 34.4 percent of the 2.7 million kg offered at the sole auction centre in Chittagong was left unsold. In the previous auction, about 41.4 percent of the 2.46 million kg on offer remained unsold. Bangladesh's tea production in 2016 is expected to have risen to a record 80 million kg from 66 million a year earlier, Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed said, output that may be big enough to make imports unnecessary.