Tanzania crop exports suffer in world market

Dar es Salaam. Tanzania’s coffee, cotton and tea exports generally suffered from falling prices in the world market during November last year as the result of different factors.

The Bank of Tanzania (BoT) Monthly Economic Review (MER) for December 2013 outlines the factors as including low demand for cotton, increased coffee production in Brazil and increased global supply of tea. “The price of cotton declined mainly due to increasing use of synthetic fibres by textile manufacturers,” notes the report. The prices of coffee declined on account of bumper harvests in Brazil, Colombia, Vietnam and Indonesia.

According to the International Coffee Organisation (Ico), coffee production in 2012/13 is estimated at 145.2 million bags, a 9.8 per cent increase compared to preceding season.

Ico said coffee prices have fallen consistently over the course of 2013, with decreases recorded in nine out of the last twelve months.

“Although prices in December rose slightly compared to November, the Ico composite indicator is still at its second-lowest level of the year, and 2013 recorded the lowest average annual price since 2009,” notes Ico.

MER says robusta production increased by 11.9 per cent, while that of Arabica increased by 8.5 per cent when compared with previous seasons.

Increase in tea production in Kenya, India and Australia following favourable weather conditions coupled with low global demand was the reason behind fall in prices of tea.

According to the Tea Board of Kenya’s monthly records, the harvest increased from 32.8 million kilos in September to 44.3 million kilos last October.

Some records of tea exports last September from Tea Board of Tanzania shows that the country exported only 826,616 kilos, which was less than the 1,097,644 kilos exported last August.