Since 1980, the government of Burundi is engaged in a stuctural adjustment program essenstially aimed to reclaim the role of the market as regulator of economic activities. This process necessary involves a revision of the way of intervening an supporting economic sectors, including the tea channels, and a research of improvements in term of economic efficieny. Among numerous instruments used in structural adjustment, liberalisation figures: liberalisation involves the substitution of market rules to administrative processes as instrument of resource allocation and income distribution. It is in this context of progressive liberalisation of the productive sector that the government of Burundi would like to liberalize totally the tea channels and progressively privatise the "Office du Thé du Burundi" (Burundi Tea Office), (OTB). OTB is a state enterprise supervising the production and the marketing of tea. However, prior to liberalisation, a research on the channels is needed. It is in this context that this research project is oriented. This study aims a double purpose: first, we will study the impact of the tea channels in socio-economic development in Burundi by a detailed analysis of the cost effectiveness and the competitiveness of the channels as a whole: secondly, the impact of liberalisation will be analysed in different aspects of the channels as one of the alternative solutions of resource allocation in the channels.