By Steve A. Morrell
Tea brokers said turmoil in the Middle East was having little effect on prices at the Colombo tea auction. We have had mixed signals from the auction floor yesterday (22). Low growns , OP and BOP 1’s dropped Rs. 30 to Rs.40. per kilo . Also affected were Pekoe 1. Brokers said although these low grown grades dropped in price, quantities of these grades on offer were not significant enough to influence the entirety of the market.
Irrespective of these price drops, brokers said the auction continued to maintain the momentum of past weeks and there was no apparent fallout from the turmoil in the Middle East.
Egypt is not a buyer of Ceylon Tea, but Libya is.
Managing Director Van Reese Ltd., Niraj de Mel said there was no panic shown; shippers who had already had their orders in place continued to buy without much fuss or alarm.
However, dislocation in Libya was a cause for concern. Shippers to Libya were not ready to comment on their futures trading, but they said they were anxious.
At the auction yesterday, western high growns and Nuwara Eliyas were unaffected. Market conditions for Ex- estates were quite firm .
By and large, it was business as usual, brokers said. Sales quantity this week was 6.5 million kilos. The sales averages were more or less maintained at all elevations except for low growns .
Next week, the crop on offer would not exceed 5.9 million kilos. Brokers are of the view they could handle more crop but production was low.
source - www.island.lk
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