Tea auction begins in Ctg today

The first tea auction for 2022-23 will begin today at the Chattogram Tea Auction Centre.

In the first phase, 1,058,708 kilogrammes (kgs) of tea leaves collected from 97 tea gardens across the country will be sold.

On the other hand, the auction in Sreemangal -- the country's second auction centre -- will begin on April 27.

Forty-five tea auctions will be held in Chattogram and 23 in Sreemangal.

"The demand for tea will increase for Eid-ul-Fitr," Omar Hannan, chairman of the Tea Traders Association of Bangladesh, told The Daily Star.

"We hope to get better prices in the auction, as buyers are also showing interest to take part in it. I think the tea market will become stable after the end of the Covid-19 pandemic."

In the last auction in the port city, around 750,000 kgs of tea leaves were sold.

"Production and auction of tea was normal even during the Covid-19 pandemic last year thanks to the implementation of different plans taken by the Tea Development Board and sincere efforts of industry stakeholders," said Bangladesh Tea Board Chairman Major General Md Ashraful Islam.

"The demand and supply was normal in the last tea auction year when production, sales and prices of tea increased simultaneously," he added.

Islam believes the tea market would remain stable in the 2022-23 auction year as well.

The tea board chairman said tea production will be better this year as it started raining in Sylhet and Chattogram on time.

Furthermore, North Bengal's Thakurgaon and Nilphamari districts are also producing a good amount of tea this year, he said.

Islam thinks the country will be able to produce more tea leaves this year than the yearly target of 100 million kgs.

Bangladesh produced 96.50 million kgs of tea in 167 farms across the country last year, which was the highest annual yield in the history of Bangladesh.

The previous highest annual production came in 2019, when a record 96.069 million kgs of tea was produced.

In the northern region alone, plain tea gardens and small plantations added a record amount of 14.54 million kgs of tea to the national production in 2021 as opposed to 10.30 million kgs in 2020.