Insight
What do the 2025 numbers actually show?
Senegal imported 24,000 tonnes of Chinese tea in 2025, up 61.4%, worth USD 98.4 million, up 62.5%, at an average USD 4,024.6 per tonne. Morocco imported 91,000 tonnes, up 13.4%, worth USD 280 million, at USD 3,043.4 per tonne. Senegal paid 32.2% more per tonne and grew more than four times faster.
| Measure | Senegal | Morocco |
|---|---|---|
| Volume | 24,000 t | 91,000 t |
| Volume growth | +61.4% | +13.4% |
| Value | USD 98.4 m | USD 280 m |
| Value growth | +62.5% | +14.7% |
| Unit price | USD 4,024.6 / t | USD 3,043.4 / t |
| Against China's 2025 average of USD 3,691.2 / t | +9.0% | −17.5% |
Why does Senegal pay more?
The customs figures show the gap but not its cause. Both numbers are averages across every grade, pack and contract shipped in 2025, so a different mix of gunpowder and Chunmee grades, more retail-packed tea or different delivery terms can each move the average. Senegal ranked second by export value among all destinations, behind only Morocco, on roughly a quarter of Morocco's tonnage.
Senegal is also not the top of the West African range. Value divided by volume from the same table puts Côte d'Ivoire at about USD 4,258.4 per tonne and Mauritania at about USD 4,136.9; Ghana, at about USD 4,004.9, paid almost exactly Senegal's price.
Mauritania was fourth by export value at USD 83.2 million, on 20,116.7 tonnes, and takes 100% green tea from China.
What would a Senegal-first programme look like?
Gunpowder 3505 with the suffix fixed and held across shipments, Chunmee 41022 alongside it, residue tested against the destination standard, and French-language retail packing in the sizes the market actually sells. The document pack is agreed with the Senegalese importer; it is not simply Morocco's pack re-addressed.
The point is not that Morocco should be abandoned — it took 91,000 tonnes in 2025. The point is that a price list benchmarked only to Casablanca is benchmarked to the lowest average among China's African markets.