Tea prices in Bangladesh were barely changed at the weekly auction on tepid demand from local buyers despite lower volume on offer. Bangladeshi tea fetched an average of 207.13 taka ($2.60) per kg at the weekly auction held on Wednesday, compared with 207.12 taka in the previous sale, the National Brokers said.
There was subdued demand from local buyers although supplies were lower than last week, a senior National Broker official said. About 9.1 percent of the 2.40 million kg offered at the sole auction centre in Chittagong remained unsold. In the previous auction, 24.5 percent of the 2.80 million kg on offer was unsold.
Bangladesh's tea output rose nearly 27 percent last year to a record 85 million kg, a harvest that was seen as being 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. Bangladeshi buyers have imported tea in bulk from India, Thailand and Malaysia, contributing to a glut in the domestic market and reducing demand at auctions, industry insiders said.