Rural Today newspaper conducted an interview with Mr. Nguyen Loc An – DOMESTIC MARKET DEPARTMENT (Ministry of Industry & Trade)- Deputy Director General – on fertilizer supply and demand and fertilizer price control status. How is our fertilizer supply status to meet the current Winter – Spring cultivating crop’s demand? – The North’s fertilizer consumption occupies 30% of the whole Vietnam’s Winter – Spring cultivating crop demand. We have made a request on intensifying production capacity supply for this market, pausing fertilizer exporting until the Winter – Spring cultivating crop ends, and asking banks to prioritize foreign currency for fertilizer importing activities. Domestic fertilizer which has not been produced will enjoy an exporting tax exemption to be produced. What will price control or supervision stage be to deal with that fact that farmers still buy fertilizer at high price, even equivalent to imported fertilizer price, although fertilizer is first sold at very low price at factory? –  According to fertilizer stabilizing resolutions, Ministry demands domestic fertilizer production enterprises to minimize production cost, limit price increase in sale peak time such as Winter – Spring crop. However, due to imported fertilizer price increase substantially, fertilizer price is pushed into imported price when come to farmers’ hands due to distribution flow regardless no increase price was made by domestic production enterprises. Therefore, Ministry also asks domestic enterprises to expand their distribution network and reinforce price increase supervision activities during distribution stage to eliminate the illogic in distribution. We also encourage enterprises to do partnership with local authorities in programs ensuring low fertilizer price to farmers. Ministry also collaborates with Ministry of Finance to check following / obedience of price regulation status from wholesalers, enterprises… Source: Rural Today