Tea traders withhold product on low price

High volumes of tea were withdrawn from the auction this week on account of low prices during the sale that was held on Tuesday.

About 12 percent of the tea offered for sale was withdrawn, marking the highest volumes to have been taken out of the orders this year as the price per kilo dropped from Sh222 previously to Sh212 this week.

The move saw 1.6 million kilos of tea withdrawn from the market by sellers in anticipation of higher prices in future.

“Out of 13.9 million kilos available for sale, 12.27 million kilos were sold with 1.6 million kilos of the packages going unsold,” says a report from the East African Tea Traders Association.

The volume sold in the previous sale stood at 10.6 million kilos.

Tea price had gone up in the first sale of this year when it hit Sh225 a kilo before 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.