Disruption to shipping routes linked to the Iran war has left about eight million kilograms of tea stuck in warehouses in Kenya’s port city of Mombasa \u200bfor weeks, threatening export earnings and farmer incomes, the head of the East \u200cAfrica Tea Traders Association said.<\/p>\n
George Omuga, managing director of the association that runs the Mombasa tea auction, said losses since March 1 were piling up to the tune of $8 million per week.<\/p>\n
“The current conflict in the \u200bMiddle East has had a direct impact, a negative impact on this auction,” Omuga told \u200bReuters.<\/p>\n
No tea was currently leaving for the Middle East, which accounts for \u206020-25% of Kenya’s tea exports, while buyers were also scaling back purchases because even the stocks \u200bthey had already bought were not moving, he said.<\/p>\n
The war has led to\u00a0widespread disruption\u00a0to global \u200bshipping, with major carriers suspending movements through the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb Strait, rerouting vessels around Africa, sending ships in the Gulf to shelter and imposing emergency surcharges across the region.<\/p>\n
President William Ruto had said \u200bon Monday that tea exports were performing well despite the disruption, with 81% of tea offered \u200bfor auction exported in March, up from 75% a year ago.<\/p>\n
Omuga said the 81% figure cited by Ruto referred \u200cto \u2060purchases made at the auction between January and March 2026, not actual exports, and said the situation on the ground was worsening as logistics bottlenecks deepened.<\/p>\n
“Government’s statements are just to give people comfort; the reality on the ground does not show a positive outlook,” he said. The spokesperson \u200bfor Ruto’s office did \u200bnot respond to calls \u2060or messages requesting comment.<\/p>\n
Kenya exports an average of 100 million kilograms of tea annually to Middle East markets, Omuga said.<\/p>\n
Tea destined for Pakistan and \u200bEgypt was still moving, but only via the longer route around the \u200bCape of \u2060Good Hope, driving up freight and insurance costs and squeezing exporters’ margins, he said.<\/p>\n
The industry was already reeling from earlier geopolitical shocks, Omuga said.<\/p>\n
Before the Ukraine war, Russia imported 29 million kg of \u2060Kenyan tea, \u200bbut that has since dropped to 5 million kg, \u200bhe said, adding the sector and the government needed to develop new markets within Africa to cushion the industry against global \u200bturmoil.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Disruption to shipping routes linked to the Iran war has left about eight million kilograms of tea stuck in warehouses in Kenya’s port city of Mombasa \u200bfor weeks, threatening export earnings and farmer incomes, the head of the East \u200cAfrica Tea Traders Association said. George Omuga, managing director of the association that runs the Mombasa […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20388,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":9,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,32,2362],"tags":[111,5010,2750],"class_list":["post-20387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-africa","category-economy","category-featured","tag-kenya","tag-kenya-tea-exports","tag-mombasa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20387"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20389,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20387\/revisions\/20389"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}