Bujumbura, June 13 - Burundi sees tea export earnings rising 46 percent this year compared to 2007 due to upgraded processing machinery, an official said on Friday.
The state-run Tea Board (OTB) forecast 2008 earnings at some $13.5 million from sales of around 6,500 tonnes. It earned $9.2 million last year after exporting 6,506 tonnes.
"We hope to get firmer prices because most of the tea that is going to be sold will be of nice quality," the head of exports at OTB, Joseph Marc Ndahigeze, told Reuters.
Ndahigeze said drying machinery at the country's five tea processing factories had been modernised, and that the other equipment was due to be upgraded by the end of the year.
"Projections for this year are to get an average price of $2.08 per kilo, up from the $1.42 received in 2007," he said.
OTB forecasts total output in 2008 at some 8,250 tonnes, up from 7,073 tonnes in 2007, thanks mainly to good rains and the distribution of fertiliser to farmers.
Tea is Burundi's second-largest hard currency earner after coffee, and it supports some 300,000 smallholder farmers.
The country exports 80 percent of its tea to Kenya for sale at a weekly auction held in the port city of Mombasa.