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ECC permits fertilizer imports for 100,000 tons

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September 10, 2018 (MLN): In its meeting held on Monday, the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) has resolved to allow the import of fertilizers to meet the deficit in domestic demand for urea ahead of the crop season.

According to sources, the committee has decided to permitt 100,000 tons of import for urea.

While briefing on the ECC meeting decisions, the information minister Chaudhary Fawad hussain said that this year, total demand of urea fertilizer in the country was 5.8 million tons against previous year's demand of 5.9 million tons.

He added that the government would have to pay a subsidy of Rs 960 on each imported urea bag as its retail price in Pakistan was Rs 1,615 per bag while imported urea would cost Rs 2,575 per bag.

Despite strained economic condition, the government has decided not to put extra monetary burden on the farmers, hence ECC meeting has decided to provide fertilizer factories with 50 percent local gas and 50 percent LNG. According to sources, LNG bills will be equally divided between the fertilizer companies and the government.

The decision comes ahead of the Rabi season that begins on October, and works towards ensuring that a shortage of domestically produced fertilizer does not result in increased prices for the highly demanded input, at the same time, preventing the possibility of black-marketing which would have troubled local farmers had imports been banned entirely.

According to sources, if run on full capacity, three major fertilizer units – Pak-Arab, Agritech and Dawood Hercules – could collectively produce 87,000 tons per month, leaving a shortage of between 60,000 to 100,000 tons for imports.

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Posted on: 2018-09-10T13:23:00+05:00

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