Rwanda tea volumes up 1.9 percent on the Mombasa auction market

Rwanda Tea Authority (Ocir-Thé), has this week increased its volume of tea offered on the Mombasa auction market to 112,058 kilograms from 109,932 kilograms last week expecting to cash in on the high demand and favorable prices on the market. The increase, which represents 1.9 percent, follows 7,776 kilograms of Rwandan tea that remained unsold last week. On the weekly Mombasa auction market through which a host of African countries sell their teas, tea prices averaged $2.21 (Rwf1, 247.32) in the first four months of the year. During an interview with the Business Times, the Director General of Ocir-Thé, Anthony Butera said that last week was not the same because Kenya had a public holiday on Tuesday, pushing trading to Wednesday. Most of Rwandan tea is sold through Mombasa while a small fraction is traded through direct and local sales. In the first half of this year tea was recorded as Rwanda’s leading export revenue earner with a slight increase in earnings of 1.2 percent to Rwf22.95m up from Rwf22.66m in the same period last year. Ends