The government will procure additional one lakh tones of fertilizer from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
The Cabinet Committee on Public Procurement has approved two proposals of the Ministry of Industry to buy urea fertilizer and one proposal of the Ministry of Agriculture to buy DAP fertilizer were approved in a committee meeting at the Secretariat on Wednesday.
Additional Secretary of the Cabinet Division Syed Mahbub Khan disclosed the information in a virtual press conference after the meeting which was chaired by Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal.
He said, “According to the proposal of Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation (BCIC), approval has been given to purchase 30000 tons of bulk granular urea fertilizer from Fertiglobe Distribution of United Arab Emirates. Its price will be Tk 204,72,82,545. The price of urea per ton will be USD 632.”
Earlier, Urea was last bought at USD 678. As a result, the proposal to buy fertilizer at a price of about USD 46 less than before was approved.
Saeed Mahbub also said that BCIC’s other proposal has approved the import of 30 thousand tons of bulk granular urea fertilizer under the state contract from an organization called Muntajat in Qatar. In this case too, the offer to buy is USD 46 less than before and USD 46 per ton is saved.
Under the proposal of Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation (BADC), the proposal to purchase 40,000 tonnes of DAP fertilizer from Saudi Arabia’s Mayden company for Tk 309 crore 77 lakh 96 thousand has been approved. The price of DAP per ton is USD 726.50. That was previously purchased at USD 866. This time the offer has been reduced by $140.
Incidentally, according to the information of the Ministry of Agriculture, the demand of urea fertilizer is 2.6 million tons every year. The demand of DAP is about 16 lakh tonnes. The fixed price of urea at the dealer level is Tk 20 and at the retail level Tk 22. The price of DAP fertilizer is Tk 16 per kg.
Meanwhile, the price of approved urea fertilizer is falling at Tk 68.24 per kg in both proposals. The government has to pay huge subsidies to meet the cost of higher prices of fertilizers.
