No stress on prices of urea: Rs400bn subsidy provided to agri sector: minister

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Industries and Production Khusro Bakhtyar Friday said the government had provided Rs 400 billion subsidy for the development of agriculture sector and ensured uninterrupted gas supply to the fertilizer industry to help promote agriculture production in the country.

Addressing a press conference along with the owners of fertilizer industries, the federal minister said the government had also launched a web portal to monitor urea production and supply.

He said dealers’ names, locations and truck numbers had entered in the ‘tracing system’ by the manufacturers in real time to help monitor the fertilizer transport. The government was taking all these steps to control smuggling of urea bags, he added.

“All Deputy Commissioners have access to data of their districts and ground staff approaches the dealers and verifies the amount on arrival. Once urea arrives, it is sold at controlled rate by the dealers under supervision of district/agri administration,” he added. He said in the international market, urea was being sold at the rate of Rs11,000 per bag whereas in Pakistan, the price per bag was only Rs1,800.

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The minister said two million bags of urea fertilizer had already arrived at port and if needed, more fertilizer would be imported.

He said tender in compliance to the import decision by the government was issued by the Trading Corporation of Pakistan on October 22, 2021 and opened on November 22, 2021.

He said the government of China had offered supply of 100,000 tons of urea on government to government basis.

“The Economic Coordination Committee of the Cabinet has approved import which would arrive from 10th to 25th of February 2022 and resultantly, there will be an ample inventory in February-March 2022.”

Khusro said due to effective actions and prompt management there was no stress on prices of urea as it would remain stable, adding sowing of wheat had been completed in irrigated areas of Punjab and Sindh.

The minister said due to the prevailing rain spell, demand was expected to be on the lower side till January 9, 2022 and during rain period from January 6 to 9, daily dispatch of the fertilizer remained at 19,000 tons.