LAHORE - Fertilizer manufacturers have reiterated their stance, asking the government to buy the urea from domestic manufacturers instead of buying the same from international market.
A spokesman said that fertilizer manufacturers never refused to sell urea to the government, instead, they have already been demanding government to not to import urea by draining out millions of dollars of foreign exchange and buy the same from the local manufacturers who are offering the same at highly low rates as compared to urea available in the international market. They said that as of June 1, the total local availability of urea stood at 950,000 tons while the total production expected is 1.2-1.5 million tons. If we assume 200 kt more imports as already planned then the closing inventory of Sept would be over 300 kt that is much above the minimum buffer stock level of 200 kt.