Urea prices raised by Rs 100 per bag

Prices of urea were increased by Rs 100 per bag on Saturday, taking the price of 50-kg bag from Rs 1150 to Rs 1250. Urea prices have registered an increase of 48 percent during last four months. At the beginning of December 2010, its price stood at around Rs 840, said Agri Forum Pakistan Chairman Muhammad Ibrahim Mughal here. Mughal told Business Recorder that on average for the last four months prices of urea have been registering around 12 percent increase per month.
Nowhere in the world prices of agricultural inputs increase in such a manner, he said and added that when the raw material of this important agri input had registered no increase during last few months, raise in the price by the manufacturing companies was unjustified.
Mughal said over 131 million urea bags were used by the agricultural sector in a year and the fresh increase would put an additional burden on growers. He said in India, the same fertiliser was available to growers in PKR 494 per 50-kg bag and in Indian rupees at Rs 270 per bag. He said hike of Rs 100 per bag in Pakistan means putting an additional burden of Rs 13 billion overnight on growers who would never be able to bear this additional burden.
He said in Kharif season it was expected that 8 to 8.5 million acres of land would be brought under cotton cultivation, rice 6 to 6.5 million acres, sugarcane 2 to 2.5 million acres and maize, fodder and pulses on huge area. He said that cotton and rice are two crops which constitute 75 percent of our total exports and such a big increase in fertiliser prices is aimed at killing our export sector.
Chairman Agri Forum said almost 100 percent of our urea requirement was being manufactured within the country and increase in its prices would definitely affect our food and clothing as rice, sugarcane, cotton, pulses and prices of other food items would also increase.
He suggested that the government should stop giving subsidy to fertiliser manufacturing companies as they are not passing on this subsidy benefit to growers, which would definitely result in another jump in prices of this fertiliser and might also attract foreign players to enter the Pakistani market. Entry of such players would pave way for reduction in the prices, he added.