KARACHI – The Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) has approved import of over 0.225 million tonnes of urea in order to ensure urea availability in the market. The committee is yet to decide if import would be made through the Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP) or from private sectors.
However, it is expected that ECC would allow TCP to import urea as the private sector has shown little interest. The ECC, which had earlier favoured import from the private sector, was likely to give the task to TCP as the State Bank of Pakistan was willing to import urea through the corporation.
The meeting of ECC, which was held on Tuesday in Islamabad, has decided to import urea in order to meet demand in the Rabbi season.
The domestic market faced urea shortages, causing a rise in price. According to sources, increasing market price and prevailing stocks situation had caused the ECC to import around 0.225 million tonnes of urea, which was critical to maintain adequate buffer stock for market stability.
The ECC, in its earlier meetings, was also informed that the ongoing load-shedding would entail urea shortage by the end of December 2010 and early January 2011.
Besides the import issue, the government was yet to convince Saudi authorities to get fertiliser on deferred payments. The Saudi Arabia Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) has refused to extend the facility to Pakistan. Export of urea on deferred payment was earlier pledged by Saudi Arabia during the donor’s conference at Tokyo.
