Tea prices in Bangladesh fell about 2.3 percent at the weekly auction on Tuesday due to large supplies of inferior quality leaf, but sales rose amid tight supplies. Bangladeshi tea fetched an average of 170.56 taka ($2.50) per kg at the auction, compared with 174.46 taka in the previous sale.

Prices dropped sharply as buyers sought huge discounts for poor quality tea, of which there was huge supply, a senior official at National Brokers said. There was, however, strong demand for quality tea which helped to limit a steep drop in prices, the official added. About 28.6 percent of the 2.64 million kg offered at the sole auction centre in Chittagong was unsold. In the previous auction, about 41.4 percent of the 3.28 million kg on offer remained unsold.

Copyright Reuters, 2017