DHAKA: Tea prices in Bangladesh dipped in a second consecutive weekly auction on Tuesday due to poor quality end-of-season varieties on offer in the last sale of the marketing year, brokers said.

The average price of Bangladeshi tea dropped to 103.41 taka ($1.25) a kg from 142.40 taka a kg in the previous sale, said an official at National Brokers Limited, the country’s largest tea broking firm.

Around 1 million kg of tea was offered at Bangladesh’s only auction centre in the main port city of Chittagong, and 37.3 per cent was left unsold. That compared with 27.51 per cent unsold in the previous auction, when the offer was nearly 837,000 kg of tea.

The first auction of the new marketing year is likely to be held on the last Tuesday of April.

Bangladesh’s tax authority has imposed a 25 per cent duty on imports of tea to safeguard the local industry.

The south Asian country has become a net importer of tea after previously ranking as the world’s fifth largest exporter.

Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are the main importers of Bangladeshi tea.