NAIROBI, Feb. 5 (Xinhua) -- Kenya is set to launch the first electronic tea auction in Africa, an official said on Monday.

Edward Mudibo, the Managing Director of East African Tea Trade Association (EATTA), noted that the new system will start trial operations in December.

"Tea buyers and brokers will use computers and screens during the auction period as opposed to the use of a hammer during their weekly," Mudibo told Xinhua in an interview.

He added that the system will remain under trials for one year before being launched officially in December 2019.

Currently, tea auction is held in public and is an "open cry" system where buyers compete for lots of tea by bidding against each other in an auction room.

Mudibo revealed that Kenya will be the first country in Africa and the second in the world after India to unveil the system.

"The system of buying where a broker hits the hammer during the weekly Mombasa auction must come to an end to allow e-auction," he added.

The Mombasa tea auction is the world's largest black tea auction and handles about 75 percent of tea exported through the port of Mombasa, covering shipments from the EATTA member countries of Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Malawi, Madagascar and Mozambique. Enditem