Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN) - Bangladesh has refused Iran’s proposal to set up a joint-venture gas-based factory in the gulf country, officials said.
"We’ve received a proposal from Iran. But we have refused it because of some reasons including foreign diplomacy," industries minister Dilip Barua was quoted by the Financial Express (FE), a local newspaper, as saying.
"The Iranian government in its offer said that it would set up a joint-venture factory where Bangladesh government would supply technical manpower to produce fertiliser. But we have dearth of this manpower," the minister added.
Mr Barua also said in addition that such a huge investment by Bangladesh is not possible in order to establish a fertilizer factory in Iran.
The Iranian government has recently proposed Bangladesh government to build a joint-venture gas-based fertilizer factory in Tehran.
Since Bangladesh imports about 2.2 million tons of urea and non-urea fertilizers out of its total 4.0 million tons of annual demand, the Iranian government has offered Bangladesh to build the fertilizer production plant there, officials confirmed.
Bangladesh spends more than BDT 40 billion for importing fertilizers to meet its local demand every year.
The state-owned Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation has six urea fertilizer plants which are producing nearly 1.5 million tons of urea fertilizer per year.
Iran's offer of setting up a fertilizer factory in Tehran is very lucrative for the country, as Bangladesh would get cheaper fertilizer from the gas-based plant, the newspaper reported quoting a top finance ministry official.
The official also said as gas is the major input for setting up the urea fertilizer factory and the gulf country has offered a gas-based plant, we should accept its proposal.
BBN/SI/AD-28Aug10-2:38 pm (BST)
