MIIT: Make every effort to meet the demand for fertilizers during the spring plowing season

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Ministry of Industry and Information Technology: Making every effort to meet the demand for fertilizers during the spring plowing season Author/Source: Sinochem News Date: November 16, 2021 Page views: 21 On November 12, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology held a symposium on the production and operation of the fertilizer industry. The meeting emphasized that all regions and departments must fully recognize the importance of ensuring a stable supply of fertilizers and stable prices in order to maintain farmers’ enthusiasm for growing grain and safeguard overall food security, and must make every effort to ensure an adequate supply of fertilizers for next year’s spring plowing. The meeting pointed out that currently, the supply and demand of chemical fertilizers remain generally stable. Since September, however, fertilizer production has declined in some regions due to insufficient supply of factors such as coal and electricity, which will have a certain impact on ensuring the supply of fertilizers for next year’s spring plowing. However, China has a large surplus capacity in nitrogen and phosphate fertilizers. At present, we are still in the initial stage of preparing fertilizers for spring plowing. As support for these production factors improves further, the production load on enterprises will gradually increase, enabling them to meet the fertilizer needs for next year’s spring plowing. The meeting called on industrial and information technology authorities at all levels to give priority to ensuring the supply of production factors such as raw materials and energy for fertilizer enterprises. They should promote the practice of determining production volumes based on the amount of phosphogypsum generated, guide enterprises in making reasonable production arrangements, and ensure the stable operation of fertilizer manufacturing firms ； Strengthen the connection between supply and demand; work together with industry associations and key enterprises to establish platforms for matching supply and demand, and assist in preparing fertilizer allocation in advance ； Carry out monitoring and early warning, promptly track and analyze industry trends, ascertain the true situation, keep abreast of changes in market demand, and help coordinate efforts to resolve issues. Industry associations should play a bridging role, take proactive actions, and guide the industry to strengthen self-discipline. Key fertilizer enterprises should ensure sound production and operations, take effective measures for disaster and epidemic prevention, so as to maintain uninterrupted production and stable output levels. At the meeting, industry associations for nitrogen fertilizers, compound phosphate fertilizers, inorganic salts, etc. put forward relevant policy recommendations. Gu Zongqin, chairman of the China Nitrogen Fertilizer Industry Association, proposed ensuring the supply of coal for nitrogen fertilizer production and reducing the price of coal used in such production ； Ensure a stable supply of natural gas and price stability ； Relax the assessment of enterprises’ dual-control targets for energy consumption during the spring plowing and fertilizer preparation period ； Electricity price fluctuations should not be applied in the same way as to high-energy-consuming industries; the range of such fluctuations should be within 20% ； Fixed-bed enterprises that have undergone clean transformation should be subject to the same environmental protection production restriction policies as those using new coal gasification technologies ； Strengthen supervision and guidance over enterprises engaged in the commercial storage of chemical fertilizers, and ensure the proper fulfillment of storage tasks.