UKRAINIAN fertiliser, some 100,000 tonnes of it, is set to be imported into Myanmar starting from January, a Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry official, told The Myanmar Times on November 28.

Likely to be imported through an Israeli company, the fertiliser is squarely aimed at meeting heavy local demand.

A four-member delegation led by the UMFCCI’s secretary general, U Sein Win Hlaing, was to travel to Israel on November 30 to negotiate a number of bilateral trade deals between the two nations.

But the main focus of the talks is to secure the import of the Ukrainian fertiliser, the secretary general said.

“We are going there to discuss bilateral trade promotion. We will bring with us samples of rice and some beans and pulses with the hope that we’ll find markets for them in the Middle East.

“We will sign a contract to import 100,000 tonnes of fertiliser through an Israeli company too. Domestic demand for fertiliser is too high – more than 1 million tonnes a year – but our three factories can only produce 150,000 tonnes,” U Sein Win Hlaing said.

Myanmar’s three fertiliser factories are located in Salay (Sagaing Division), Kyunchaung (Magwe Division) and Paleik (Mandalay Division) but their combined production falls far short of demand, which is partially met by imports from China and India.

U Saw Mya Din, a central executive committee member of the Myanmar Paddy Producers Associ-ation, and who is part of the Israel delegation, said rice growers get only 25 percent of the fertiliser they need.

U Ko Ko Latt, the director of Global Sea Trader, who helped to organise the fertiliser deal, said the first batch of 12,500 tonnes should arrive in Yangon in January, with a further 12,500 set to land every month thereafter.

“The fertiliser will be bought through Monash based Tamco-A Tech. Our preliminary agreement has set a price of US$285 a tonne when it reaches Yangon,” U Ko Ko Latt said.