The federal government has directed Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP) to complete the import of 0.15 million tons of urea within next two months aimed at ensuring timely availability of the commodity in the domestic market. Ahead of expected shortfall in the upcoming crop season, the Economic Co-ordination Committee (ECC) of the cabinet in its recent meeting granted approval for the import of 0.15 million tons urea through the state-run grain trader.
Sources said that TCP had received a formal directive from the federal government for the import on July 16, 2015 and it had been asked to complete the import till September 2015 to avoid any shortage in the domestic market. Following the directives of the federal government, TCP issued three urea import tenders to be opened next month. "In order to ensure timely import and avoid any shortage in the market, the TCP has decided to import 0.15 million tons of urea through multiple tenders and accordingly three tenders of 50,000 tons each has been issued," they added.
First tender, released on July 17, 2015, will be opened on August 17, second on August 18 and third released on July 20 will be opened on August 20 to finalize the import deal. In addition, in order to ensure timely import of urea the TCP has invited bids through open tenders without restriction from all pre-qualified or non-prequalified parties. As per tender documents, the state-run grain trader has strictly asked suppliers for supply of urea in accordance with the standard and specifications described by Pakistan Standard &Quality Control Authority (PSQCA) for urea and the import policy order.
The corporation has fixed a minimum quantity of 50,000 tons for bid and has clearly mentioned in the tender that bids for less than 50,000 tons would not be accepted. According to the tender, interested urea suppliers, who can supply urea form world-wide origins, may submit their bids on Cost and Freight (C&F) basis in the tenders. However, the urea suppliers, defaulted with the TCP, will not be eligible to participate in the tendering process unless they clear their dues before tender opening date.
Further those urea suppliers who have not fulfilled their contractual obligations with the TCP will also not be eligible to participate in the tenders, unless they clear their dues along with penalties or fulfil their contractual obligations with TCP, as the case may be, before tender opening date. Sources said that this was the second urea import during this year as on the directives of federal government TCP has already imported some 0.1 million tons urea in first half of this year (2015).
It may be mentioned here that although, the country's fertiliser industry is capable to meet domestic urea demand with installed production capacity of over 6.5 million tons annually against the consumption of 5.8 million tons. However, they (domestic urea producers) are unable to produce sufficient commodity due to gas shortage. Therefore, the federal government has decided to import urea from international market to avoid any shortage during next crop season.
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