Tea prices in Bangladesh rose 2.5 percent at the weekly auction due to strong winter demand, despite there being a higher volume on offer. Bangladeshi tea fetched an average price of 240.35 taka ($2.80) per kg at the auction on Tuesday, compared with 234.43 taka at the previous sale, National Brokers said. There was strong demand as buyers wanted to stock up for the winter season although supplies were larger than last week, a senior official with the National Brokers said.
Demand for tea in Bangladesh usually rises in winter. Around 13.8 percent of the 2.36 million kg offered at the sole auction centre in Chittagong remained unsold. In the previous auction, 8.7 percent of the 2.36 million kg on offer was unsold. Bangladesh's tea production rose nearly 27 percent last year to a record 85 million kg, a harvest that was seen as 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.