Fertiliser import cost up 40pc in last fiscal

Government payments for fertiliser import shot up by around 40 per cent to Tk 75.16 billion in the last fiscal (2013-14) following a drastic fall in the domestic production of the agricultural input, official sources said.
Production in the state-owned fertiliser factories plummeted by nearly 50 per cent in the last fiscal year (FY) over the corresponding level in the previous fiscal due mainly to short supply of gas, they added.
The six fertiliser factories run by Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation (BCIC) manufactured 0.84 million tonnes of urea in the last FY. The production volume fell from 1.6-million tonne mark a year ago (2012-13).
Such a significant fall in the local output forced the government to count a total of Tk 75.16 billion for importing 1.8 million tonnes of urea in the FY-14. The import cost of fertilisers was Tk 53.48 billion in the previous year.
Chairman of BCIC Md Munsur Ali Sikder said the corporation could not utilise full production capacity of its factories for want of gas. And the failure fuelled the import cost.
"All the BCIC mills are owned by the government and suspension of gas supply is also a government decision. So we have nothing to do against the state's policy," he added.
He said if the corporation could run the factories round the year, the major portion of local demand for fertilisers could be fulfilled locally.
According to the BCIC chairman, the annual manufacturing capacity of the country's six public-sector factories is about 2.0-2.2 million tonnes per year. The national demand for the widely-used soil nutrient is 2.7 million tones.
According to BCIC officials, the operation of Chittagong Urea Fertiliser Limited, Ghorashal Urea Fertiliser Factory and Polash Urea Fertiliser Factory, Ashuganj Fertiliser Factory and Natural Gas Fertiliser Factory in Sylhet has been suspended since middle of March 2013 for want of gas.
Only Jamuna Fertiliser Company Limited in Jamalpur continues operation, they informed.
However, the gas supply to three of the factories -- Polash Urea Fertiliser Factory, Chittagong Urea Fertiliser Limited and Ghorashal Urea Fertiliser factory -- resumed early this week though the supply to the rest three remains uncertain, they informed.
According to the agriculture ministry, Bangladesh has an annual demand for around 5.0 million tonnes of fertilisers: 2.7-million-tonne urea and the rest non-urea.
Of the urea fertiliser, the government further set a target to import 1.8 million tonnes during the ongoing financial year (2014-15) along with a production target of about 0.9 million tonnes.
BCIC officials admitted that most of the fertiliser factories in the country, established between 1961 and 1989, were old. As a result, the factories cannot be run to their full capacity.