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Fertiliser prices rise despite stockpiles
Fertiliser prices in the domestic market will rise despite a significant stockpile as a result of volatility on the global market, the Ministry of Industry and Trade has forecast.
The ministry anticipates a tonne of urea will increase from US$265-270 to $330-340 and SA fertiliser, from $120 to $150 in March.
The hike is attributed to rising demand in the world market, as many countries are currently in cultivation seasons.
An increase in China's fertiliser export tax, which supplies a third of the world's fertiliser demand, would also contribute to the price hike, the ministry said, adding that China had recently raised the export duty on urea from 75 per cent to 110 per cent.
Within the domestic market, the price of fertiliser has inched up over the past few weeks. A kilo of urea is priced at VND6,500-7,000, while potassium diammonium phosphate (DAP) is running at VND9,000-10,000.
The country still has roughly 2 million tonnes of fertiliser stockpiled from significant imports over the last few months. According to the General Statistics Office, the country in the first two months of the year alone imported roughly 530,000 tonnes of fertiliser, up nearly 80 per cent over the same period last year.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) has forecast that the country's agricultural industry will need roughly 9.3 million tonnes of fertiliser this year, of which roughly 4 million tonnes will need to be imported.
The MARD anticipates that the country will need to import at least 500,000 tonnes of fertiliser annually until 2010 and may only be in a position to stop imports by 2020. Currently, the Ninh Binh and Phu My fertiliser plants can produce 950,000 tonnes of urea annually.
To minimise the country's dependence on imports, MARD is boosting research and application of advanced fertiliser production technologies while encouraging farmers to use bio-fertilisers to reduce production costs, according to Nguyen Tri Ngoc from the MARD's Cultivation Department.
The Ministry of Industry and Trade, meanwhile, has so far also asked the chemicals sector to fully exploit the production capacity of existing fertiliser plants and to speed up the construction of Ninh Binh, Bac Giang and Ca Mau fertiliser plants.
VietNamNet, Viet Nam News
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