A tea farm in Kenya [Photo: Rove.me]
Data from the Tea Board of Kenya (TBK) indicates that the Russian-Ukraine war has cut the value of tea exports to Moscow by 1.1 billion shillings.
This was attributed to the war that started in early 2022.
The data shows that the value of tea exported to Russia went down from 6.2 billion shillings in 2021 to 5.1 billion shillings last year.
The Tea Board of Kenya (TBK) says consumers in Russia faced hard economic times as a result of economic sanctions, hurting demand for Kenyan tea.
The Board also says selling to Russia also became harder as the country fell under restrictions in terms of accessing US dollars.
“Lower export volumes were due to fewer imports by Pakistan, Russia and Egypt owing to challenges of foreign exchange reserves in these markets occasioned by the effects of the Russia-Ukraine crisis on the global economy,” said the TBK.
Pakistan and Egypt account for 55 percent of the total tea exports that Kenya sells to the world but low foreign reserves impacted negatively on volumes that they bought.
The Russian-Ukraine war saw stakeholders worried that the invasion by Moscow would hurt earnings.
However, Russia remained the sixth largest buyer of Kenyan tea.
Overall earnings from tea grew by Sh2 billion last year.