Argentina to remove import duties on urea, UAN: Caputo

Argentina's economic minister Luis Caputo is proposing to eliminate import tariffs of 5.4pc and 3.6pc on nitrogen-based fertilizers urea and UAN.

Caputo reported the planned move on X, formally known as Twitter, without specifying a timeline.

Argentina is the third-largest urea import market in Latin America, after Brazil and Mexico, receiving 825,000t last year, and as much as 1.55mn t in 2021, trade data show.

Egyptian product accounted for 44pc of imports, or 364,000t, in 2023. Argentina has a commercial agreement with Egypt which exempts the import duty.

Meanwhile, Nigerian producers supplied almost a fifth at 156,000t, while imports of Algerian urea were 125,000t last year.

The country has one major urea producer, Profertil, which is jointly owned by north America's Nutrien and Argentinian state-owned energy company YPF, and has an annual granular urea capacity of 1.32mn t.

UAN receipts were around 350,000 last year, down from just over 680,000t in 2020. Imports are typically sourced from the US, Trinidad and Tobago and Russia.

By Harry Minihan