Responding to farmers' complaints about rising fertilizer prices, the Council of Agriculture (COA) vowed yesterday there would be no further price hikes until the end of this year.
“There won’t be any price hikes in the next seven months,” COA Minister Chen Wu-hsiung (陳武雄) told a legislative committee yesterday.
Taiwan Fertilizer Co (台灣肥料), the nation’s largest fertilizer manufacturer and supplier, agreed on Friday to absorb 15 percent of the price hike, while the government would subsidize 70 percent of the increase. The remaining 15 percent will be paid for by farmers.
However, legislators yesterday urged Taiwan Fertilizer to absorb the other 15 percent, as the company has profits coming from non-operating activities, such as land development and Al-Jubail Fertilizer Co, a joint venture between Taiwan Fertilizer and Saudi Basic Industries Corp.
“Taiwan Fertilizer can absorb the additional 15 percent price and should subsidize [fertilizer prices] all the way,” Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Liao Cheng-ching (廖正井) told the legislature’s Economics Committee.
Liao said that Taiwan Fertilizer had non-operating revenues of NT$4.5 billion last year, and NT$1 billion in the first quarter of this year. The company’s net profit in the first quarter was NT$950 million.
But Taiwan Fertilizer president Lee Jen-chieh (李仁傑) said that as a listed company, with 76 percent of its shares held by the public, it has an obligation to uphold the interests of its shareholders.
Taiwan Fertilizer, originally a state-owned enterprise under the Ministry of Economic Affairs, was privatized in September 1999.
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