Tea prices in Bangladesh edged higher at a weekly auction on Tuesday on strong demand for quality leaves amid a lower volume on offer. Bangladeshi tea fetched an average price of 236.76 taka ($2.80) per kg at the auction, compared with a revised price of 236.44 taka at the previous sale, National Brokers said.

There was good demand for quality tea and buyers were ready to pay premiums, which aided the rise in prices while supplies were lower than last week, a senior official at National Brokers said. Around 14.9 percent of the 2.62 million kg offered at the sole auction centre in Chittagong was unsold. In the previous auction, 14 percent of the 2.75 million kg on offer was unsold.

Bangladesh's tea production jumped nearly 27 percent last year to a record 85 million kg, helped by favourable weather conditions and making imports a choice not a necessity. The South Asian country was the world's fifth-largest tea exporter in the 1990s but is now a net importer due to a surge in domestic consumption in line with economic growth.

Copyright Reuters, 2017