Commodities

Tea price in Mombasa auction at 8-week low

tea

A tea farm in Murang'a County. FILE PHOTO | NMG

Tea price at the Mombasa auction slid to an eight week low as the streak of poor prices continues to be registered at the weekly trading.

Data from the auction showed a kilo of tea dropped to Sh207 last week from 212 in the previous sale, despite the volumes traded having come down by over 300,000 kilogrammes.

The low prices saw traders withdraw 14 percent of the lots that they had offered for sale, which is higher than the previous 12 percent.

“This week’s average price decreased to Sh207 when compared with the previous sale. The week’s total volume traded was 338,534 less than last week’s auction,” said a market report from East Africa Tea Traders Association.

Tea price had started on a higher note in the first sale of this year when it hit Sh225 a kilo but it has since been dipping in the subsequent sales.

Tea prices have been low the whole of last year in what stakeholders attributed to high volumes of the commodity in the market.

The export earnings decreased by Sh23 billion from Sh140 billion recorded in 2018 to Sh117 billion.