Local Tea Farm [Photo: The Guardian]
Data from the East African Tea Trade Association (EATTA) indicates that tea prices at the Mombasa auction have for the first time traded above the government set minimum price which is 2.43 dollars.
A Kg of the commodity traded at 2.46 dollars on Tuesday from 2.42 dollars in the previous sale last week Tuesday.
This is as the price of tea at the auction has for the last nine months been selling at below the minimum price that the government set for all Kenya Tea Development Agency produce.
EATTA says the volume of tea withdrawn from the auction also declined to 29 percent, down from 31 percent that was recorded in the previous sale.
“There was good demand but at irregular levels with prices following quality for the 197,500 packages (13.2 million kilogrammes) available for sale. 139,740 packages (9.3 million kilos) were sold with 29.25 percent of packages remaining unsold”, said Eatta.
During the sale, Pakistan Packers, Bazaar and Afghanistan showed strong support with more interest from Egyptian Packers, Yemen, other Middle Eastern countries and other Commonwealth Independent States which include; Armenia, Azerbaijan and Belarus among others.
EATTA managing director Edward Mudibo also noted that Russia maintained inquiry with local packers active on account of price, Somalia maintained activity at the lower end of the market.
Meanwhile, another report from the Tea Directorate indicates that tea earnings in seven months to July grew to 80 billion shillings when compared with 71 billion shillings that was recorded in corresponding period in 2021.