SINCE it is imperative for Pakistan to improve its balance of trades for stabilising the national economy, all industries must be given requisite incentives to boost exports.

The export of surplus fertilisers can be a quick and sustainable solution to reduce the trade deficit and earn valuable foreign exchange.

Pakistan’s domestic fertiliser manufacturers have achieved high productivity over the past couple of years. While fulfilling the demand of the local agricultural sector, they accumulated a big surplus opening inventory of nearly 1.5 million tonnes of urea this year.

This surplus inventory can be easily exported without creating any shortage of urea within the country because all these enterprises, including the RLNG-based factories are willing to continue their production if a favourable environment and sufficient gas and other inputs are consistently provided.

The management of such a large inventory involves a huge carrying cost and storage expenses. Therefore, this year the government’s Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) has allowed the export of 300,000 tonnes of urea to reduce this inventory burden.

However, the time margin given for achieving this export volume is too short and it will expire on the Oct 31.

Shahid Saleem

Islamabad

Published in Dawn, October 24th, 2017