Dollar Shortage Prompts Egypt to Barter for Tea, Kenya Says
- Kenyan tea sales to Egypt down 23% in first eight months
- East African nation is world’s biggest exporter of black tea
Varieties of tea samples in Nyeri countyand, Kenya.
Photographer: Tony Karumba/AFP/Getty ImagesThis article is for subscribers only.
Egypt wants to keep buying tea from Kenya — it just doesn’t want to use up its stash of US dollars, so the country is offering to barter instead.
With a number of countries around the world facing shortages of greenbacks, the world’s biggest exporter of black tea was asked last week if it could trade tea for anything that Egypt produces, according to Kenyan Treasury Secretary Njuguna Ndung’u. Speaking at a panel in Nairobi on Monday, the Kenyan official said the request came from Egypt’s ambassador.