The average price of the top Kenyan tea grade inched down to $3.47 per kg at auction this week from $3.53 per kg at the previous sale, market participants said.The east African nation is the world’s largest exporter of black tea and the crop is one of its largest hard currency earners, raking in $1.27 billion last year.Africa Tea Brokers (ATB) said in a market report that Best Broken Pekoe Ones sold at $3.20-$3.74 per kg compared with $3.20-$3.86 at the previous sale.Best Pekoe Fanning Ones went for $3.23-$3.52 per kg compared with $3.32-$3.46, ATB added.“There was fair general demand for the 5,105,825 kilos (79,293 packages) on offer at irregular rates,” ATB said, adding that 22.45 percent of the tea on offer did not get buyers.Pakistan Packers, Yemen and other Middle Aast nations offered good demand at the auction while Egyptian Packers and the United Kingdom also offered interest but were selective in their choices, ATB said.Regulator Tea Board of Kenya expects production to pick up starting this quarter, after a 14 percent year-on-year fall in output for the first three months of the year, thanks to heavy rains in the country.The weekly auction in the port city of Mombasa also handles tea from other regional producers like Burundi and Tanzania.
