The figures were released by Nguyen Tri Ngoc, head of the Cultivation Department under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development at a conference on improving the efficiency of using fertilizer in agriculture in Hanoi on July 29.

In the past 7 months, Vietnam fetched around US$7 billion from agricultural exports but imported US$1.3 billion worth of fertilizer and pesticide.

Mr Ngoc said that the use of fertilizer seems to decrease in developed countries but keeps rising in developing countries.

Over the past 7 months, Vietnam has to imported around 630,000 tonnes of DAP and 742,000 tonnes of Kali. From now until 2010, the country will have to import around more than 500,000 tonnes of fertilizer each year. The agricultural sector is looking for other kinds of fertilizer to replace DAP such as NPK and NEB 26.

In 2007, Vietnam produced 1.385 million tones of phosphate. This year, however, the northern region needs around 600,000 tonnes of fertilizer and the southern region needs up to 1.5 million tones.