November 11, 2003	Tuesday	Ramazan 15, 1424

ISLAMABAD, Nov 10: The government has constituted a committee to formulate proposals for export of surplus urea to Afghanistan.

Informed sources told Dawn on Monday that the committee is composed of representatives from ministries of industry and production, commerce, food, agriculture and livestocks.

The committee, the sources said, was assigned the task to work out proposals for the export of urea to Afghanistan. The committee would send its report to the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) for approval.

Sources said that the ministry of agriculture has declared that a surplus of about 50,000 tons of urea was available in the country.

According to the sources, the decision to export surplus urea to Afghanistan was taken following the observation that a huge quantity of urea was being smuggled to Afghanistan through the porous borders.

This smuggling is resulting into a huge loss to the national exchequer, the sources said.

It may be added that earlier a proposal of the ministry of agriculture to export surplus urea to Afghanistan was turned down by the ministry of industry and production.