Rwanda has this week upped its tea, offered for auctioning at the Mombasa weekly auction market by 126 percent from last week’s 216,433.5 kgs to 489,401 kgs. According to the weekly tea report by the Africa Tea Trade Centre ltd, a regional tea Brokerage firm, Rwanda has committed 423,147 kgs from the main category and 66,254 kgs from the secondary category. Rwanda Tea Authority (OCIR-THE), a public parastatal charged with overseeing the crop’s production and marketing, says that about 70 percent of its tea is sold by auctioning at the Mombasa tea auction market. The remaining 30 percent is sold through exports and domestic direct buyers. The overall volume of tea committed for the two day auctioning from nine countries is 6.1 million kgs, up from some 5.9 million kgs that were on offer last week. The weely reports says that this follows an upward trend in volumes for auctioning. About 5.89 million kgs were offered last week compared to 5.78 million kgs in the previous week. In the overall offers, Kenya has the highest offer in terms of volume with 3.9 million kgs for both categories. The host country has consistently been offering more volumes compared to other East African Community (EAC) states. Its main grade offer has however reduced to 3.4 kgs from 3.8 kgs last week. In the secondary grades, Kenya has committed 439,718 kgs compared to 307,769 kg last week and 319,384 kgs the previous week. Uganda’s offerings for both grades at the auction this week stands at 1.11 million kgs compared to last week’s 1.04 million kg. Other participants at the auctioning include the Democratic Republic of Congo which has offered to sell 20,870 kgs, Tanzania 341,971 kgs, Mozambique 6,892 kgs and Malawi 54,900 kgs. Burundi’s volume has fallen to 125,909 kgs. According to the report, Zambia and Ethiopia, which also sell some of their teas through the auction market have not made any offers for this week’s sale. Meanwhile, official statistics from Ocir-The show that tea exports between January and March increased by 8.9 percent because of increased production as a result of good climate and application of fertilisers. In the first three months of 2009 foreign tea sales increased by $1.1 million ($626.3 million) from $10.5 million (Rwf5.98 billion) in the same period last year, fetching higher export prices. Between January and March this year, Rwanda’s exported tea fetched $2.22 per kg (Rwf1,263) on average compared to last year’s $2.21 per kilogram (Rwf1,258) and $1.74 (Rwf990) in 2007. Ends
