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The government has taken all necessary measures for proper and timely distribution of fertiliser across the country this season, reports UNB.
"The government has already supplied some 0.573 million metric tonnes of urea fertiliser against this year's demand for 2.8 million tonnes," Industries Minister Motiur Rahman Nizami told a press conference at his office Tuesday.
Appreciating the effective 'distribution network' of Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation (BCIC), Nizami said fertiliser industries under BCIC are expected to produce some 1.9 million metric tonnes of fertiliser in the current fiscal year.
He said the country's fertiliser industries had been incurring losses due to soaring prices of raw materials and their obsolete technical equipment. "Urea is now selling at Tk 4800 per ton against its production cost of Tk 6000. That means BCIC suffers a loss of Tk 2.24 billion a year," the Industries Minister said.
Nizami said his ministry would put forward a proposal to the government to recover the loss from government fund as local 'trade gap'.
On the laid-off industries, the minister said the government had taken initiatives to reopen those industries, which were previously declared as non-profitable units.
He said two such sick industries had already been reopened while a process was underway to reopen the remaining ones.
These factories will be rehabilitated under 'Enterprise Growth and Bank Modernisation Programme' supported by World Bank and DFID, the minister informed.
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