Tea remained Kenya’s leading foreign exchange earner in 2015 with revenues rising by 30.9 per cent to Sh123 billion in 2015 from Sh93.9 billion in 2014.
The earnings were helped by a strong dollar, the currency the commodity trades in at the weekly Mombasa Auction, leading to highest revenues in the last five years, the Economic survey 2016 shows.
The average price per kilo of tea recorded a 42.2 per cent increase to sell at Sh293 in 2015 from Sh206 in 2014 “due to international supply constraints”.
Kenya produces black tea and it is the world’s largest exporter of the commodity.
The country exports more than 95 per cent of its tea.
The top export markets are Pakistan, Egypt, United Kingdom, Afghanistan, United Arab Emirates, Russia, Sudan and Yemen.
This comes as the value of total exports recorded an increase of 8.2 per cent to Sh581 billion last year from Sh537 billion in 2014, the report indicates.
“Value of horticultural exports rose from Sh97 billion in 2014 to Sh101 billion in 2015. Foreign earnings from coffee rose for the second consecutive year to Sh20.5 billion in 2015 from Sh19.9 billion 2014,” the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics said in the report.
The unit price of coffee recorded an improvement during the year with earnings from one Kilogram of coffee rising from Sh420 in 2014 to Sh472 in 2015.