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Afghanistan needs around 500,000 tons
fertiliser, Pakistan informed
ISLAMABAD (April 06 2004): To curb the smuggling
of agricultural inputs into the country, the
Afghan government has officially conveyed its
demand to the Pakistani authorities.
"Afghanistan will need around 500,000 tons of
fertiliser during this year," sources close to the
Afghan embassy told Business Recorder here on
Monday. The Afghan government has communicated
this to Pakistan through its embassy in Islamabad,
they disclosed.
Pakistan has sought the assistance of the Afghan
government on the issue in view to look into
possibility of urea export, as Pakistan has
attained self-sufficiency in its production.
According to the sources, the fertiliser
consumption in Afghanistan was never estimated due
to war and civil strife continuing there for over
20 years.
The alleged smuggling of fertiliser has put
Pakistan in real trouble on many occasions
especially in December 2003, after the government
had allowed the fertiliser firms in November to
export 50,000 tons Urea.
This troublesome situation prompted the Pakistani
authorities to get data about the fertiliser
requirements in Afghanistan.
"Afghanistan will need around 280,000 tons of Urea
and about 215,000 tons of DAP during 2004,"
sources said. Pakistan has always complained that
Afghanistan is a major market of smuggled
fertiliser.
Pakistan is self sufficient in Urea, the domestic
consumption of which remains approximately at 3.9
to 4.0 million tons per year. On the other hand it
imports the DAP fertiliser which is consumed at
the rate of around 1.5 million tons annually.
According to the sources, the estimates indicated
by Kabul will also help Pakistan reviewing the
available Urea stock and allowing fertiliser
corporations to export the commodity at
appropriate time.
Around 340,000 tons of Urea and 127,000tons of DAP
are available in the stocks at present which is
sufficient for domestic consumption, according to
the sources privy to the meeting of Federal
Committee on Agriculture (FCA) held here on
Saturday.
Rich in natural gas and encouraged by strong
government incentives, Pakistan's fertiliser
industry made a landmark achievement in 1998/99
with the addition of almost 1.5 million tons
capacity, comprising of 1.05 million tons urea and
0.45 million tons DAP per year.
This expansion increased the total installed
capacity of urea from 3.3 million tons to over 4.3
million tons given the present level of Urea
consumption of about 4 million tons.
The sources, however, disclosed that Pakistan
could not meet Afghanistan's fertiliser
requirements and the latter, at times, could be
allowed to import fertiliser from international
market through Karachi port.
Some of the Afghan traders are believed to be
involved in the fertiliser import via Pakistan
beyond the required estimates especially when the
prices go lower in the international market and
the input especially the DAP is smuggled back to
Pakistan.
Courtesy Business Recorder |
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Pakissan.com; Advisory Point
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