e-Auction

Sri Lanka annually manufactures about 300,000 metric tons of tea, and 95% of Sri Lankan tea production is sold through public auction. The country exports 90% of the total production through buyers at the Colombo Tea Auction.

As the world’s second-largest tea trading center next to Mombasa, Kenya, the Colombo Auction handles on an average of 5,000 to 7,000 metric tons of tea weekly. 

Over the years with tea factories increasing the number of grades to meet buyers’ demand, the number of lots has correspondingly increased, expanding the volume traded within the system. As it is an auction on two full days, on Tuesday and Wednesday, the buyers and brokers are expected to taste, grade and evaluate up to 12,500 different lots of tea during the other days of the week to ensure the auctioning of tea every week. 

Since the beginning in 1883, tea auctioning had been carried out through an ‘Open Outcry’ system where all buyers meet and compete for tea sales and purchases publicly. Outbreak of COVID 19 pandemic, and the subsequent lockdown led to the abandonment of the auction on March 24th, 2020.

As a result, all stakeholders in both private and public sectors came together and developed an online solution to revive auction operations on April 4th, 2020. CTTA made this quick and crucial decision knowing that this is the only method to keep the tea trade operational with the utmost support and cooperation of all stakeholders. This colossal effort to introduce an alternative solution within a span of 10 days received a lot of praise from many people locally and internationally and secured the livelihoods of nearly 2 million individuals.