Minister assure to address issues of fertilizers manufacturers payments.

ISLAMABAD -- Federal Minister for Industries and Production Makhdoom Syed Murtaza Mahmud on Monday assured that government would address the issues pertaining to payments of fertilizer manufacturing industry.

The Minister urged the industry to rationalize the prices immediately to support the farmers pivotal boosting agriculture productivity of the country, said a press release issued here.

Federal Minister for Industries and Production Makhdoom Syed Murtaza Mahmud chaired the meeting of fertilizer review committee here.

The participants of meeting included representative of fertilizers manufacturing industry and officials from Finance Division, Petroleum Division, Ministry of Food Security and Research as well as officials of Provincial agriculture departments.

The meeting discussed the domestic production and demand of fertilizers for kharif season.

The Chair was briefed that projected domestic production of urea would be 3.2 MMT from April-September 2022 whereas probability of urea off take would remain 3.4 MMT in the same period.

The forum was also told that there would be 2% increase in agronomic demand for fertilizers in this year. It was noted that the urea sales went up by 17% in last year.

The forum noted that a significant part of urea's demand would be met domestically, however, summary for urea import of 2 lac tonnes would be placed to fill the gap before demand peaks in June during the kharif sowing season.

In order to curb the hoarding and profiteering, leading to smuggling of urea across the...