Tea prices have indicated a slow falling pattern at the Mombasa tea auction since the beginning of the year with average price per kilo reaching USD 2.02 (Sh204) on week six of 2020.
During the first week of the tea sales this year the average price per kilo went for USD 2.23 (Shs225).
According to the East Africa Tea Trade Association (EATTA) data, the prices have maintained a continuous slight drop from the Shs225 posted in the first week to Shs220 during the second and third weeks.
The fourth and fifth weeks posted Shs213 and 207 consecutively.
The pattern is similar to the corresponding period in 2019 when average prices started at USD 2.15 (Shs217) on the first week but slowly fell in following weeks reaching to Shs203 on the sixth sales week.
Last week’s total volume traded at the regional sales hub also dropped by a margin of 905,372 kilos compared to the previous week’s performance where a total of 11.8 million kilos of the commodity was sold.
Out of 12.5 million kilos available for sale, 10.9 million kilos were sold with the unsold packages representing 12.25%.
Furthermore, while Kenyan tea claimed a lion’s share of the total volumes available selling up to 8.7 million kilos, it was Rwandan tea that continued to fetch better prices at an average of USD 2.96 (Shs299) per kilo compared to Shs214 of Kenyan tea.
The quality of Rwandan tea has for quite a long time now remained the best against its regional competitors’.
In last week’s sale, Ugandan tea sold off the second highest volumes at 1.3 million kilos followed by Rwandan tea with 511,930 kilos.
Tanzania, Burundi, Mozambique and Ethiopia were the other countries whose commodity traded at the auction.
Middle Eastern countries continued to dominate purchases with Pakistan leading the pack.
“Pakistan Packers were dominant and lent strong support with useful interest from Egyptian Packers but at lower levels,” the sales performance report read.
“There was reduced and selective participation from Kazakhstan, other CIS nations, Yemen, other Middle Eastern countries, Afghanistan, UK, Sudan, Bazaar and Russia. Iran were subdued. Somalia were active at the lower end of the market,” it noted.
