KUNMING, May 2 (Xinhua) -- Southwest China's Yunnan Province exported 7,108 tonnes of tea worth 33.1 million U.S. dollars in 2018, the provincial agriculture and rural affairs department said.

The planting area of tea in Yunnan reached 420,000 hectares, with a total yield of 16.7 billion yuan (about 2.5 billion U. S. dollars), said Wei Min, deputy head of the department.

Yunnan is a major tea production base in China, with the locally produced Pu'er tea being especially popular in China and abroad.

Official data showed that the output volume of Yunnan's tea industry reached 84.3 billion yuan in 2018, an increase of 13.6 percent.

"Our tea leaves can be sold at a price as high as 2,000 euros per kg in the European market," said Dong Zuxiang, who runs a tea company in Pu'er.

Dong said that the company's tea exports topped 150 tonnes last year due to increasing demands in European and American markets.